June 15, 2018 – Pinkpop Festival, Landgraaf, NED

Pearl Jam Show Notes 6/15/2018:

Headlining night 1 of the Pinkpop Festival, Pink Floyd’s Interstellar Overdrive serves as the intro to a 7-minute version of Corduroy, with Ed leading the crowd in an early call and response. Corduroy had also opened the show here at Pinkpop in 2000. After Red Mosquito, Ed describes their first experience at Pinkpop, commenting

“We still remember our first time…and one of the things I remember about that day…that Matt Cameron was there with the great band Soundgarden. It was the first real tour of Europe we had ever done and back then I was so young I didn’t know the difference between the Dutch or the Danish, but I was never very good at Geometry in school.”

Prior to a seething, angry Can’t Deny Me, Ed gets political:

“You know, back in the day there used to be Russia and the red menace, and now, interestingly enough, we have darker times but a lighter shade known as the orange menace.”

Daughter was another standout performance, as another Pink Floyd song is tagged, “Another Brick in the Wall (Pt. 2),” then Fugazi’s “Suggestion” is tagged for the first time in 20 years (it was also played at Pinkpop in 1992). Matt starts thumping the kick drum immediately after Lukin, transitioning seamlessly into Porch. Mike takes over the jam, a winding solo of melodies and riffs that burst through the song for nearly 5 minutes, before Ed comes in chanting as the band swells back into the chorus. It’s a nostalgic encore, all early 90’s songs. After a powerful Black with the crowd singing along loudly, Ed tells the story of the iconic 1992 show:

“I had something important happen to me today and it has everything to do with this place. You know back in ’92 we were playing this kind of thing…and we weren’t used to the big space. People used to be able to jump on the stage because it was close, it was intimate. There was no distinction between the crowd and the band. So, when we came in the first time, it was the first festival we had ever played and there was this big space, so I got the attention of the camera man and he was on one of the boom things. So, do you know what happens next? So, here’s the deal…and somebody sent me a postcard with a picture of me jumping off that little thing and the camera man, his face is looking at me like he is going to fucking kill me. And I realized that he probably had every right to do so, and I had never seen him since and always wondered, and I always see this card in the house in the hallway and I’m reminded every day, and I wondered what ever happened to that guy and is he still pissed off at me? And so, when we were in Amsterdam the other night, I met a local and I said is there any way we can find him, and we did! And he’s here and retired in January. So, congrats on that and a job well done. But here’s the thing, he told me a completely different story than what I have had in my head all these years. I thought he was so angry with me, but what he was doing, was for me to jump on that thing he had to get other guys to hold the back, the ballast, otherwise I would have jumped on it and he would have gone down. So, he is yelling, and he isn’t yelling at me but he’s yelling at other guys to hold us up. So then, we go up to the front and we are almost over the crowd, but not quite, and then, when I try to make it, I felt like I was going to be short, he’s yelling in the mic for the guys to jump off because as soon as I jump off, he would have gone shooting into the fucking atmosphere! This guy and I were working in tandem, but we had no clue and he hasn’t been mad at me at all this whole time and I just feel so fucking forgiven! And it’s a great feeling!”

A lengthy version of Rockin’ in the Free World closes the show, which was the same way they closed their Pinkpop set from 1992. 7 songs off of Ten are played, a unique and special show full of easter eggs and references to previous appearances.