June 21, 2012 – Manchester Arena, Manchester, ENG

Pearl Jam Show Notes 6/21/2012:

Night 2 in Manchester opens with ripping versions of Go, Animal, and Hail, Hail to set the pace for the night ahead. Ed applauds the crowd for having “more energy than all the bankers and all the accountants that must have come to last night’s gig,” and says that the “beautiful rainy day…reminds us of Seattle,” before transitioning into I Am Mine. Later, Ed introduces Mike as “one of the best friends you can have in your life” before a three-headed attack on Even Flow, with Mike pulling out his bag of tricks, then Stone takes over with a melodic lead, and Matt brings it home with a thunderous drum fill. Prior to Deep, Ed talks about how he thinks assholes are put here so that we don’t become like them before recounting the song’s origin:

“I was walking in Seattle, I’d only lived there less than a year, and a lighter kinda fell out of the sky onto the sidewalk, and I looked down and I looked up to see where it was coming from, and about four stories up there was a guy, real skinny, kinda scabby-looking dude in a windowsill with a band around his arm, putting a needle into his elbow, the inside of his elbow, and man, once I saw that I just knew I would never fucking do that, it was the most pathetic-looking thing I’d ever seen…”

The theme of troubled souls seeking affirmation continues throughout the set with stirring versions of Down, Present Tense, and Save You. Stirring crowd participation on the Better Man intro. In the encore, Just Breathe is dedicated to a couple, Lisa and Tobias, who met at the 2010 Hyde Park show. Ed talks about all the firsts that have happened in Manchester, the first railway station, splitting the atom, and says they’re going to try something less important but just as hard, and it’s the live debut (and only performance to date) of Hitchhiker! The band ably performs the song, which has a slightly extended jam/bridge, even with Mike checking to see what the other band members are doing and Stone laughing about the whole thing. The final encore concludes the narrative around the theme of escapism turned to progress with Life Wasted and Alive. Comic moment after Alive as Mike, without looking, holds out his guitar for the tech to take, but no tech comes, leading him to have to put the guitar back on quickly as Sonic Reducer starts. He throws in a short “Little Wing” tease in the Ledbetter solo and after finishing, goes out into the crowd and gives someone his “NUDEDRAGONS” shirt, returning to the stage shirtless for the bow and then using his camera to film the crowd, as he’s the last to leave the stage.