November 24, 2013 – Sports Arena, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Pearl Jam Show Notes 11/24/2013:

Relaxed opening with Oceans and Low Light before Present Tense ups the tempo. Interstellar Overdrive is the first of 3 Pink Floyd covers/tags on the night. Ed says that he and Mike did some surfing during the day, and that Sundays “are a little harder to like, knock the roof off…I don’t know…it takes a little more conscious effort to raise the level of this shit…so, if you are up for the challenge we sure the fuck are. So we’ll start this one off, this one’s for all the surfers in the crowd…” leading to a soaring version of Amongst the Waves. My Father’s Son is introduced with “if you’ve ever had a father who ended up in prison, this song is for you.” Mike’s guitar work is hauntingly beautiful during Immortality. Ed talks before Small Town:

“This one is specifically for anybody from Reseda. Or it could be for anybody from San Onofre, anybody from Carpinteria, Fife, anyone from Fife here? West Seattle, here we go…”

“Future Days is dedicated to Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann, who are in attendance. There’s a little hiccup in the beginning, which seems to annoy Ed, but the band picks it back up. A fan up front starts convulsing and faints during the song, Ed comments after:

“…there was some guy that got pulled out of here before and it was…he just had a bit of an emergency but he’s fine, it took me out of the game for a second there I just…it’s hard to see somebody come over like that, we got little history so I, just it took me…he’s fine, alright…”

The fan does indeed receive medical care and returns to the show later. During Sirens, Ed’s guitar is horribly out of tune, he’s visibly frustrated, and when his tech, Richie Ramone, comes out to retrieve it Ed tosses it behind his back instead in anger. After the song, he comments:

“Alright, I am officially going to start drinking right about now. What I was doing before was just amateur bullshit, I am going to get all professional right about now. One thing I will mention as we’re getting ready to start really fucking kicking some ass….I have to say, we were talking to some of the people in the building, in the box office and even though its Los Angeles, a place with many cultures and crazy colors, at the box office when people pick up their tickets they said they’ve never seen even like 10% of the amount of passports being used as identification because of all the people coming from all over the planet to come be a part of these shows and ah, I see Brazil and Argentina, and there we got some Israel right there, Shaka, Italia. So, we have a good friend and this might be his last night here, his name is Rob from Manila, Philippines, and they’ve just been battered and beaten and its brutal, the tragedy that’s just happened there with the typhoon, so we just want to tell him to send everyone our best wishes when you get back and we’ll send you with a little bit of something to help, alright here’s to not stopping making a difference.” 

No Way returns for the first time since the PJ20 shows back in 2011. After Blood, Ed waves off the band and storms off, ending the main set perhaps prematurely. After the break, Ed talks about playing in LA in ‘91 with Nirvana and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, saying “our band owes so much to that band [RHCP].” He continues to wax nostalgic before starting Better Man:

“…and literally I owe so much to Jeff and Stone and Mike for having faith in me in the early days. And Matt for agreeing to be in our band, even though he did know I was in it. And then if you think about that statement…the reason those are great bands is because he is in them…Matt Cameron! This one goes back so far, it was before even I met these guys or even really knew who they were…it was just something that I was sitting on the edge of the bed a long, long, time ago…it was just a bit south of here, about an hour and a half south of here.”

The Another Brick in the Wall tag on Daughter includes “hey, preacher, leave those kids alone.” Ed talks about being in New York City for a time after Roskilde and getting to know Lou Reed, who recently passed, and debuts a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “After Hours,” adding “I just can’t tell you how much I miss the guy right now. There is a lesson, like, miss them while they are still here, and take care of the problem and don’t miss them anymore. That will make sense if you drink about a bottle and a half of wine and listen to it.” “Mother” is the final Floyd cover of the night, played seated, then back to the early years with Breath, Go, and Porch. After the final break, Ed comes out with:

“So when does a Pearl Jam concert end? When they kick us out. How many songs does it take for one fuckin’ Pearl Jam concert…the world will never know. Not to be rude, but we gotta play one for the back. We’ll be right back. See back in the day, these are the crowds we were used to.”

Last Kiss is played to the back. Boom is introduced to the crowd as he begins Love Reign O’er Me. Ed is noticeably quite inebriated by the end of the evening, giving the signal to Mike during RITFW to shut it down, swinging the mic stand over his head repeatedly before losing his balance and falling on his back as the song ends, taking one last swig from the wine bottle. Mike is the last one on stage at the end, taking Polaroids of the fans up front.