Pearl Jam Belgium Concert History

Small Town opens, setting the campfire mood of a late night festival set. Ed tries to get the crowd to sing along at the end, which is heard from the front but not the full crowd as a whole.  Do The Evolution, however, features the crowd chanting along to Stone’s playing during the bridge with a bit of Ed’s encouragement. Corduroy is the extended version, and also has some crowd chanting during the intro. Following the song Ed addresses the crowd in Dutch for a few lines, which is always a struggle.  He continues in English, offering that this is the best [festival] lineup and the group can’t remember another lineup that compares, and it means a lot to them to be on this stage and they are very grateful.  He offers it’s their 5th time playing the festival and introduces Matt Cameron on the drums, and that this is his 7th time, as he’s played it with Soundgarden, adding “We have something special tonight…and speaking of Soundgarden, we have Mr. Kim Thayil with us here tonight and he doesn’t normally leave Seattle. He’s got an incredible gang with him because he’s over here doing some amazing shows so right now it is my honor to introduce a true legend…MC5, Mr. Wayne Kramer, I turn the mic over to you. Here I guess you’d call him Vayne, so Vayne this is Werchter, Werchter, this is Wayne.” The MC50 lineup of the MC5 joins on stage, including Wayne, Kim, Doug Pinnick (King’s X), Brendan Canty (Fugazi), and Marcus Durant (Zen Guerrilla), Ed introduces the members and then hands the mic to Wayne who offers the famous line, “right now…right now…it’s time to kick out the jams, motherfucker!” The combined bands then perform the MC5’s “Kick out the Jams,” trading off solos, with Marcus and Ed trading verses. Ed teases “here’s a quiet one for you” before going into Even Flow. Prior to Habit, he says “Jack White dedicated a song earlier to Donald Trump and I don’t want to give him too much attention…but we got one for him too.” Habit falls apart halfway through, leading Ed to offer “fuck him it’s not worth it.” The improv that follows features the lines “oh what I’d do to you if I thought I could get away with it, what I could do to you.” Given to Fly is introduced with “this one is for all our kids and the next generation who are going to make it alright.” Jeremy features a rather large crowd participation at the end, singing along during the outro, and Ed recognizes the good singing. Jack Johnson joins for Imagine amidst a wash of cell phone lights throughout the crowd.  Jack and Ed trade versus and the song is performed with the full band seated. Ed attempts in Dutch to congratulate the Belgian football team after Once (Belgium had defeated Brazil 2-1 the previous night in the World Cup), and says  they’d like to play some Ramones for the crowd and the team, leading into I Believe in Miracles.  An 8-minute Black includes great crowd participation on the last lines, Mike’s solo slowly fading into the crowd taking over singing the outro and clapping. Out of the break, portions of the crowd continue singing the outro to Black. Alive is dedicated to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Mike begins a few notes of Yellow Ledbetter before Ed calls an audible and starts Baba O’Riley instead.

Written by: Nick Smith

RVM opens a show for the first time since 2007. Ed’s first address to the crowd is a call out in Flemish, to which the entire crowd responds in unison with some form of a chant. As the crowd finishes their part, the band begins a much quicker than usual version of My Father’s Son. During Do the Evolution, the crowd sings along with Stone’s guitar riff, not only in its usual spot, but even goes back to singing it after the band finishes the song. Once again, Ed speaks to the crowd in Flemish, this time for a much longer address, obviously working hard on his pronunciation, drawing lots of cheers and the occasional laugh. Pivoting to English, Ed then begins a short music history lesson on British vs. American popular music, which sets the tone perfectly for what was about to come:

“After liking The Who, and lots of early British bands, there weren’t many American bands that you liked, and then all of a sudden there was Sonic Youth and that was about it. But for years and years it was only The Who, The Beatles, The Kinks, you know, all this great, great music..but it was all 20 years old already in nineteen-eighty-something…but then there was a record by the band called the Pixies, and it was the greatest record that I had heard in years. I just can’t believe that we’re playing at the same time as the Pixies. I just want to toast the Pixies for being, still, one of the greatest bands ever.”

He then introduces members of the band Midlake, who had played earlier that night, and they join for All Night, with extended vocal breakdowns. Matt gets a short but sweet drum solo on Even Flow. Sirens is sensitive and intricate, showcasing the interplay between Stone and Mike. Once again, the crowd continues singing even after the band is done playing. Ed acknowledges this incredible audience participation by saying “thank you for being the best part of the band.” After the break, Ed begins acknowledging the band members, saying:

“Let’s hear it for Mike McCready, Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron…he’s played for more people in three days than we used to play to in about a year. In the last three days, of course, he had to play with two different bands in order to add up the numbers, but in three days he’s played to about 150,000 people…once with us, then last night with Soundgarden in Hyde Park, and now here he is. He’s a fucking hero and he’s not even cocky about it, he’s just a great human being…let’s hear it for Matt Cameron!”

Black returns to its usual encore spot, with a “you belong together” tag. The Pixies’ “Where Is My Mind” is tagged onto Daughter for the first time. After Porch, Ed sees a fan and interjects:

“What’s that? No, I can’t sleep in your tent with you sir. I can’t. The yellow tent with the blue, okay, you’ll be wearing what? Oh, lingerie in the shape of black, red, and yellow uniforms? Hey, Euro Cup two years, you got them. Black, Red, Yellow! We’re still playing. Fuck it!”

The crowd thinks they’re getting “Black, Red, Yellow,” and it seems like that is what Stone thinks as well, but after a jumbled start, Ed stops, turns to the audience, and in a radio announcer voice says:

“Thank you ladies and gentlemen…as the opening band for the Kings of Leon we just wanna thank you very much, thank you. Uh, Stone was taking a piss when we were figuring out what song we were gonna do next, but that’s okay, people gotta piss, that’s what people do, say no more, say no more,”

They end up playing the intended song, Sonic Reducer. Launching into Rockin’ in the Free World, with members of Midlake on guitar and tambourine, Ed changes the first two lines to honor the Belgian crowd:

There are colors on the street, 
Black, yellow and red,
There are people on the street,
Oh, they’re crazy in the head…

Ed thanks the crowd again, yelling “Kings of Leon are up next….tomorrow!” Suddenly, there’s a lot of activity on stage, they aren’t sure what to play next. Ed sings “‘I pulled into Nazareth,’ yeah, I know that one, what else do you know? We’ll play here all night!” Mike begins “Angie” as Ed and the crowd sing along, but before you know it, he transitions perfectly into Ledbetter, ending with Little Wing, and Ed joins in to sing the first verse before taking the final bow.

The show kicks into high gear with Do the Evolution to open. Ed addresses the crowd in Dutch before Got Some, and then the song has a false start. Ed tells the crowd that playing a big festival show is a lot of work and jumps into Interstellar Overdrive/Corduroy. Another false start on Olé follows, with Ed joking after the false start that the song is called “O.” Spin the Black Circle is dedicated to Jack White (who was on the bill for this festival) for keeping vinyl records alive with Third Man Records. The crowd starts singing the first verse of Better Man before Ed and he stops, commenting “Normally, I…sometimes…some guys come up and they ask for too much singing, but goddamn if you don’t sound good!” before starting the verse. At the start of the encore, Ed gives a shout out to some of the other musicians that played the Festival: X, Mastodon, Jack White and Gossip. He continues:

“…for everybody out there who’s a musician, all I can wish for you, well I wish you a nice, healthy, happy, long life…don’t stay in school. Sorry…oh, my kids aren’t here…”

He also talks about the beautiful view and finishes off with “…red wine has never tasted better…” before Unthought Known. Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads joins on stage for Rockin’ in the Free World, and Jeff and Mike switch instruments. There’s a mini stage invasion as some fans make their way onto the stage and are led off by security. No “Little Wing” tag on Ledbetter tonight, that streak comes to an end.