July 5, 2022 – Royal Arena, Copenhagen, DNK

Pearl Jam Show Notes 7/5/2022:

Release opens in the dark, the stage bathed in blue light. Ed lets the crowd take it during Animal. Retrograde pops up again for the first time since Berlin. Another intense W.M.A. tag, Jeff is playing the actual W.M.A. bassline, Josh is helping out on extra percussion, and the guitars have a little extra bite to them. As it seems to be winding down, Ed goes on a rant:

“If a parent makes a mistake, that’s okay…a man makes a mistake and it’s okay, a white American man makes a mistake and it’s okay, he’ll live his life the way he wants anyway, white man American, yea, it’s okay. Personally…since they make up half of our country, I say the women need their power, the women need their power too, ‘cause we should all be able to make a FUCKING MISTAKE…government get your hands off the women’s bodies, government get your hands out of their fuckin’ vaginas, let them have the power to make their own decisions about their own bodies and their own futures and their own minds, because we need them on the planet to make this a fuckin’ better world…”

Never Destination is very energetic, Jeff and Matt especially; a great, driving rhythm. Ed thanks the crew and says longtime crew member George Webb is out with COVID, one of the first shows he’s missed since the band started. Someone in the front row has a sign for Inside Job, and Ed sees it and takes the request. Following DTE, a girl has a sign for Black which is also then acknowledged and played. Afterwards, Ed is strumming a guitar at the front of the stage and asks for a bright spotlight on him to be turned off, then asks for all the lights to be turned off and the crowd to bring up their lights, and takes a deep breath before continuing:

“Jeff went out to the memorial at Roskilde today and saw the trees, and you know that was a day that changed so many people’s lives, and we kind of remember…there’s like our lives before that, and then there’s our lives after, and that day, in so many ways, colored our humanity, our compassion, our empathy, our sadness, and since that time a lot of us have gone on to have children, so now, even more than back then, we understand the depth of loss [Ed starts to break down in tears] and we’ll always be so sorry for the tragic events that took place…and we just want to say how grateful we’ve been to some of the families that we’ve been able to be in contact with and to share our lives with, and share their futures, and we’ve become friends and we’ve witnessed grandchildren in their lives, and their accepting of us as people has meant as much as anything in our whole lives, [Ed starts to break down again] because for everyone involved, it was just the most traumatic day, so we’re thinking about ‘em, which is not unusual, but thank you…for still being here when we come back, and again, it never stops, but I don’t get the chance to say it, on behalf of all of us, and all of our crew, I just want to send all of our love, and appreciation, and gratitude, and sorrow, to all those families…”

Which leads right into a powerful performance of Love Boat Captain, Ed is visibly emotional during the entire song. After the break, he comes back out holding a guitar again and thanks the crowd, adding:

“I’m fortunate that we get to play, you know, there was a chance that, out of respect…because there was a tragic occurrence that happened not far from here two days ago, and there’s just one quick thing I want to say, you are so doing the right thing here, it’s impossible to, you know… there’s somebody back home, there was someone who said one of the most ignorant things I’ve ever heard, and they said ‘you know, you see what happened in Denmark, that even when you have the strictest gun laws possible, it still happens’ but you know what, the fact that they can say that when you’ve had 2 incidents in HISTORY, in your history, of what they call mass shootings, so obviously it’s the right thing to do, compared to say, back in our country, where we’ve had 300 THIS YEAR, and it’s early July…so the fact that someone could be so ignorant and idiotic to say such a thing…and not only that, this person is somebody in US government, that is fucking reprehensible.”

Ed does a short “Don’t Dream It’s Over” intro to Better Man. During Alive, Ed kneels on the stage and lets the crowd sing the chorus at him, and the song ends with Ed balancing the mic stand upside down in his hand before slamming it down on the stage. Joe from IDLES is brought on stage during RITFW to play tambourine and sing backups.