July 17, 2016 – Pemberton Music Festival, Pemberton, BC, CAN

Show Notes:

A throwback to the early 90’s as a staggering 8 songs are played from Ten and another 2 from the era! The band begins the show seated for Release and Footsteps, echoing the relaxed feeling of the setting.  Daughter is…

Show Notes: 

A throwback to the early 90’s as a staggering 8 songs are played from Ten and another 2 from the era! The band begins the show seated for Release and Footsteps, echoing the relaxed feeling of the setting.  Daughter is initially tagged with the song “Dream Baby Dream” by Suicide, before “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2” takes over, with a lyric change: “leave your fucking guns at home.” Present Tense begins with Ed pointing out a tree as “that one” in the first line. Ed makes an impassioned speech about evolving prior to Do the Evolution. Following Lightning Bolt, Ed toasts Alan Vega, a founding member of the 70’s New York band Suicide, who had passed the night prior, saying that he “influenced everyone from Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Ramone I know talked about them a lot, and I bet Jack White with his two piece band…so I’m just thinking about him and thanking him for leaving such good things behind for us to keep forever,” leading to the one time, one time only full cover of Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream,” perhaps inspired by the previous Daughter tag. Ed fumbles the last lines of Wishlist, offering “I let you down,” and then doesn’t do the familiar E-bow ending. The unreleased Of the Earth is played for only the 12th time.  Out of the encore break, Ed dedicates Oceans to “my good friend Margaret and her good man Daniel.” Funny moment during State of Love and Trust as Ed tosses the mic to the crowd but misses, and has to retrieve it himself and finish the song. The crowd helps out on Comfortably Numb and Ed plays the piano at the end. Black features Ed singing “Goodnight moon” during the outro. After Jeremy, He wishes Stone a happy 50th birthday, which leads to a rendition of “Happy birthday” for Stone from the crowd. The cake is then inevitably smashed into Stone’s face, then Ed’s, and then the crowd! Ed adds, “Thank you Pemberton, you’ve made it all great. Take care of each other underneath the stars,” which leads to Alive.  During the solo, he takes a trip around the stage to view the crowd, adding “Look a baby, hey baby. Dream baby dream.”


December 4, 2013 – Rogers Arena, Vancouver, BC, CAN

Show Notes:

Surrounded by water, the Oceans opener is no surprise. Ed has a ukulele for Can’t Keep. A stage light and mood switch occurs with Corduroy. The band teams up with each other to come together for a wild Corduroy outro.…

Show Notes: 

Surrounded by water, the Oceans opener is no surprise. Ed has a ukulele for Can’t Keep. A stage light and mood switch occurs with Corduroy. The band teams up with each other to come together for a wild Corduroy outro. Perfect call and response by the audience on MYM. Ed takes a moment to crack open some wine and offers a quick hello, “we’ll be home soon enough but we’re in Vancouver, we’re not going anywhere. We’ll talk later. Let’s keep going,” keeping the energy up with Gods’ Dice and Lightning Bolt. Stone leads the way into In Hiding and Ed reaches for the wine and gestures to his throat and chest and mouths something about his voice. It looks like Boom is reading the sheet music. Ed tells a joke about meeting someone from Mexico and a couple from Sweden who have come to Vancouver for the “tropical weather.” He reminisces about an early 1991 show at the Town Pump in Vancouver where the audience was the size of the first row and they remember playing this song…cue Even Flow. During the solo, Ed speaks to a tech who fixes something while Ed shares an enormous bottle of wine with the front row. Mike tiptoes out of the solo as do the backing guitars, leaving Matt’s mastery on display. Stone gets pretty bluesy for the Not For You solo and Ed does a yodel call and response with the audience. Lights go out to spotlight Ed on his guitar for After Hours. He asks for the crowd to help with lyrics for Gonna See My Friend, has a mini jam session with Stone at the end and they sneak in a few chords of Porch. Mike is on his knees for the Porch solo, Matt maintains the beat with otherworldly precision during a super extended bridge. Jeff swats at the hanging globes and Ed plays front row bartender and proceeds to climb the lighting, mic in hand.

After the break, he toasts the bartender/guitar tech who brings him the wine and grabs his ukulele to play Soon Forget, last played in 2006! A tech issue follows and he eggs on the audience with some hockey-talk and a shout-out to friend Chris Chelios which the crowd jokingly disapproves of. Each member of the band is highlighted on a beautifully mellow Thumbing My Way. After Mother, Ed says “as a taxpayer, you might contribute to things you don’t necessarily agree with…bombs dropping on children…now we have drones…I’m not getting into it,” and jokes that he will leave the crowd with a tale of a 4.5 hour concert with 3 hours of music and 1.5 hours of politics, leading into an energetic Insignificance. Ed struggles a bit with the lyrics and the chords during Better Man, gets the audience to assist, states “I fucked up, I know,” and continues to take long pauses, playing with the audience. Stone joins Mike and Jeff’s side of the stage and then Ed joins in, creating a little guitar posse. The song continues and Ed asks “Should we stop now?” The “don’t run away” line has a list of tags:

“like my father did…like my brother did…like my sister did…like my uncle did…like all my friends…like my first girlfriend did…”

Ed windmills, rests on Mike before the final guitar push of the outro and we get not one, not two, not three, but four signature jumps.

Ed introduces “Mr. Stone Gossard and Andy Wolf who looks after Stone’s shit and is a total champ tonight,” in reference to the tech issues. Ed thanks Mudhoney for opening for them and again braving a storm to get there. Mike’s Black solo is bluesy, yet wailing towards the speakers and has Ed crying out at the very end. Alive becomes interactive with Mike going right down into the front section and Ed catching gifts being thrown at them and climbing speakers and pointing to people. The lights go on and Mudhoney’s Mark Arm and Steve Turner join in for Kick Out The Jams. Ed teases the audience “they sometimes say leave them wanting more…well fuck that shit,” and acknowledges how they’re “fortunate to have these gatherings based on music” and jokes about a young fan with headphones on who is “probably listening to Katy Perry.” Ed wishes the crowd a “Happy Christmas and Happy New Year….until next time.”