October 25, 2013 – XL Center, Hartford, CT, USA

Show Notes:

An especially lively crowd, loud and boisterous to start a powerful and soaring Long Road. When Ed tries to speak after Last Exit, he is drowned out by a rousing cheer, leading him to comment “…wow, we’re going to have…

Show Notes: 

An especially lively crowd, loud and boisterous to start a powerful and soaring Long Road. When Ed tries to speak after Last Exit, he is drowned out by a rousing cheer, leading him to comment

“…wow, we’re going to have to work hard to deserve that, so let’s keep going.” 

He comments later “…even a great surfer can’t surf well if the waves are shit, and these waves that you’re putting out are the best we’ve had all tour.” The stage lights go dark for the end of Alone as Ed sings the outro. He is very animated during a frenetic Save You, gesturing and jumping around. After the first encore, he comments how the band was saying how incredible the crowd has been. Come Back isn’t on the list but is dedicated to “…a beautiful person named Avielle,” one of the victims of the Newtown shooting. Ed tells the story behind Future Days, it’s about being a parent, then someone in the crowd suggests World Wide Suicide, which is toasted for it’s humor. Ed continues, saying Future Days is about wanting time to “fuck your partner…or wanting time to at least have the chance to fuck your partner…” He apologizes for saying fuck if parents brought their kids, and that they can explain that later. Chloe Dancer/Crown of Thorns is played as a request, and afterwards Jeff and Stone are toasted for writing all the great songs over the years. Ed mentions how they played a certain song in 2010 in Hartford and that they wouldn’t ever again, leading into  “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love.” Before Wasted Reprise, Ed’s got something on his mind:

“I’d like to just take a minute to tell you what an intensely profound day this has been…when you read about something like what happened last December here in Newtown, we feel like we know those people that it happened to, people that we knew, so we were thinking about you then…tonight I got to meet 3 great men, incredible fathers of children who were lost. It was such a very powerful moment to have this chance to communicate with somebody we’ve been thinking about so deeply…to know that it’s okay, not just okay but necessary that we continue a discussion to figure out how to unravel a situation where something like that can happen and to make sure the odds of that happening again are very slim. You know as well as I that you have to be very careful when talking about something like this, because they want to defame your character or take away your right to speak while they’re protecting the Second Amendment…they also think you don’t have the right to speak as an American, as a taxpayer, as a father, as a parent. We’ve got a right to speak on this issue when the safety of our children is directly affected…we’ve done some research and I’ve talked to much smarter people than myself (there’s a lot of them), but the myth that the gun lobby is the most powerful lobby in our country is a myth. The money is not the most money.  The amount of people, it’s just in the millions. It’s just because they’re louder and they are very tenacious and if you speak up against them they will jump on you and tear you apart and make it so if anyone else wants to say anything…or they want you to be fearful…I’m going to stop. You know what we’re talking about. You have to not just react, but prevent and go into prevention mode. If the majority of people agree there should be more legislation just to make it a little harder, we’re not taking away the right, just safety, it’s a safety issue…the same as a driver’s license to drive a car. It can’t be as easy as buying a pair of shoes. Anyways, all I implore you, I don’t mean to be preaching to the converted, but sometimes the choir has to sing louder. That’s one of these issues.  If we’re louder, it can happen, we just have to be louder and we have to let the politicians know they will be reelected if they do what we ask and we are asking them to do it now. Because what we don’t want is for any of those children’s lives to be wasted.  Thanks for listening.”

Happy Birthday is sung to Matt Cameron’s 15-year-old son Raymond leading into a playful Crazy Mary, with Mike and Boom dueling before combining for an epic finish. Ed dedicates Fuckin’ Up to Neil and Pegi Young, who are having their Bridge School Benefit that weekend, and that the band fucked up in scheduling their tour and not being able to attend. Following Indifference, Ed answers his own question in the song, saying “…a big difference.”