April 11, 2016 – Amalie Arena, Tampa, FL, USA

Show Notes:

It’s all rockers to start, until Ed slows it down on the new Corduroy, leading a call and response, asking “…you gonna make us work for it?” Love Boat Captain starts with an upbeat jam intro, without the organ, before…

Show Notes: 

It’s all rockers to start, until Ed slows it down on the new Corduroy, leading a call and response, asking “…you gonna make us work for it?” Love Boat Captain starts with an upbeat jam intro, without the organ, before going into the song. Ed holds out the last note of Low Light, which garners a huge audience reaction. Red Mosquito is dedicated to Nash. During the intro to a powerful Hard To Imagine, Ed dedicates the song to a fan named Bill who survived brain cancer. My Father’s Son is for “all the dads out there…no no, hope it doesn’t apply, it’s for all the shitty dads out there.” After Getaway, he tells a story about working as a security guard at a fancy hotel, and stealing the keys to fancy cars to take them “for a little spin.” The crowd cheers, but he comments it was a “stupid fuckin’ thing to do.” In the Moonlight is brought back for the first time since 2011, and is dedicated to all the surfers who like to surf at midnight. The famed cow statue, which he says Stone used to have on his amp back in the early years, appears from the crowd, and Ed uses it to intro Blood, saying “this is when you milk a cow for blood…” Beautiful renditions of Pendulum, Off He Goes, and Come Back to start the encore. At the end of “Come Back,” Eddie starts listing hockey teams, including Red Wings, Blackhawks, Rangers and the Penguins, among others, but “none of those guys we named a record after,” referring to the Tampa Bay Lightning, and they proceed to play the title track, Lightning Bolt, with a Tesla coil special effect. Small Town is for the back, and during this time, the screens play drone footage of everyone standing and waiting for the show earlier in the day, causing the crowd to erupt. After an explosive Life Wasted, Ed asks to see the Tesla Coil one more time, but it doesn’t go off. At the end of Better Man, Ed smashes his guitar into pieces. Sonic Reducer is loud and fiery. After Baba, Mike plays the opening notes of Yellow Ledbetter and the arena explodes in cheers, but then he stops and goes into Little Wing instead.