After a day off (in which Ed sat in with almost every band that played), Pearl Jam opens the final night of Ohana with “Garden.” Mike gets soulful and bluesy right away. After “Off He Goes,” Ed takes a moment…
Main Set: Garden, Off He Goes, Last Exit, Mind Your Manners, Given To Fly, React, Respond, Running, MFC, Wreckage, Big Wave, I Got Id, Black/(We Belong Together), Won't Tell, Better Man/(Save It For Later), Rearviewmirror
encore 1: Last Kiss/The Best Day, Song Of Good Hope, Gremmie Out Of Control, Alive, Rockin' In The Free World
After a day off (in which Ed sat in with almost every band that played), Pearl Jam opens the final night of Ohana with “Garden.” Mike gets soulful and bluesy right away. After “Off He Goes,” Ed takes a moment to thank the other bands, calling Alanis Morissette a “badass.” He also points out his mom on the side of the stage, adding “stay up…we’re drinking.” Lyric in “Given to Fly” is changed to “…made it to that ocean…” “Running” is dedicated to Joe from IDLES. Following “MFC,” Ed says they’re going to play “every song about water that we know…70% of them were written in the water.” “Big Wave” appears for the first time since 2016, and Ed dedicates it to “the surfers, I hope there’s a big swell coming next week, if there is we’re gonna take credit for it.” “I Got Id” is outstanding, Ed goes over and jams with Jeff at the end, Boom adds some nice texture, and Matt anchors it the whole way. They go right into “Black,” and Ed keeps the guitar on, even playing a little during the solo, which is a showstopper as usual, Mike thrashing around the stage and falling to his knees. After, Ed speaks:
“What I’m going to ask you to do is not what most people ask you to do, I’m going to ask you to be as quiet as you can, quiet as a mouse, for just a second [a few crowd members yelling over the silence]. There’s always one asshole that yells, don’t be that guy…or one woman that says ‘I love you Eddie,’ okay, okay…so we just want to hear, how many people, and if you’re listening, how many people are out there on the sand? Sand people, are you out there? [distant applause, causing Ed to laugh] We love you Sand People!”
“Won’t Tell” is the 4th and last Dark Matter song of the night, we’ll see how they use these in Australia and New Zealand in November. During the long held line in the intro of “Better Man,” Ed interjects “Sand People!” He improvs some lines during the “Save it for Later” tag, including a strained “I really fucked up/I can’t live without you/I can’t sing without you/I can’t breathe” with his eyes closed. The fan with the sign asking to play drums wants to play “Animal” tonight, but Ed says if it’s going to be anyone it’s going to be Stephen Perkins (Jane’s Addiction), who is in attendance. He points out a fan named Jed Garfunkel who’s at his 100th show, and talks about a certain political candidate who’s selling Bibles with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and the Pledge of Allegiance inside, saying he was going to get a knife and cut them out to “exercise the separation of church and state.” He continues, talking about the $500 watches being sold, adding “I wish I could buy everyone here a $500 watch…as a symbol, ’cause it’s about time…precious time, and this precious planet, and it’s about time that we say we’re not gonna take this bullshit anymore…we need lifting and not grifting.” Andrew Watt is on stage and plays guitar during “RVM.”
After the break, Ed comes out with his younger daughter Harper and an acoustic guitar. He starts to play “Last Kiss,” but after the intro Harper starts to sing “The Best Day” by Taylor Swift, and they go back and forth, trading off on each song. Harper laughs at the “I had an excellent father” line and the crowd cheers, a sweet moment, and they hug before she leaves and Glen Hansard joins on stage. Ed talks about he was in a rough situation, and “this was the song that we hung on to like a life raft…and got us safely to shore,” “Song of Good Hope.” Afterwards, Ed starts an “OTOTO” chant and explains:
“Do you know what that means? It means ‘one time, one time only’…we’re gonna play a song tonight that we’ve never played before, and very well may never play again…and because we’re this close to the beach, and as I told you, I was a 12-year-old little fuckup getting way out in the point break…we have a great, great friend, somebody we made many, many records with, spend a lotta lotta time together, he’s been so important to us, his name is Mr. Brendan O’Brien and he’s on the guitar right here…years ago, along with Jane’s Addiction and a few others, Surfrider made a record to save and help Mother Ocean, this was our contribution to it…”
After debuting “Whale Song” on night one, it’s the long-awaited debut of the Silly Surfers cover “Gremmie Out Of Control,” with Stone shimmying and dancing and yelling “Cowabunga!” It’s just as fun and ridiculous as you would hope, and the band is having a great time. Ed introduces the band after and throws in “Sand People!” There’s some booing and he stops and jokes “…why don’t you like the Sand People?” before getting to Boom. As “Alive” is starting he throws in “We love you! We love you!” A cavalcade of guests join for “Rockin’,” Stephen Perkins takes over the drum throne and Matt picks up a guitar, Andrew Watt, Brendan O’Brien, Harper and Olivia Vedder, and Glen Hansard and his band are all there among others, and even Ed’s mom has a tambourine. Jeff relinquishes the bass to Brendan, and Ed brings it down in the middle to say:
“I noticed…it ain’t ‘Keep Rockin’ in the Free Country’…it’s ‘Keep Rockin’ in the Free World’…if we’re going to be the leader of a free world, then our country must be free and you must do what you can in November to protect women’s freedoms, to protect your own freedoms, to protect democracy…”
During the “thousand points of light” lines, he adds “…election’s coming, it’s in your hands.” He leaves with “see you next year…I hope…”