Pearl Jam's Atlanta, GA Concert History

First show in Atlanta in 9 years (and last to date), in front of 50,000 people in Piedmont Park, the band gets off to a flying start with Why Go, but there are technical issues as Stone’s guitar cuts out. It’s quickly corrected and he kicks into Save You with no problem. With the downtown city skyline off to the side, Ed says hello after Animal:

“Good evening…it’s been a long time, and I’ve never quite seen it [the city] from this perspective right here…and it’s a beautiful sight…”

He continues, complimenting Florence and the Machine (who preceded PJ on stage) and “their great singer.” He asks for the crowd to help sing along leading into Small Town, and they take the “hearts and thoughts” lines. Corduroy is raucous and wild, Matt especially in fine form. Ed asks “Do you need it? Do you need it?” during Got Some. He wants to explain the next one:

“…there’s a lot of ways to write about love, and then the other side of love is, you know, the other thing, I won’t even mention it ‘cause we don’t have room for that here, but if you have something as deep as love, love is deep, love is as deep as, let’s say, the ocean…and even that first six months, it feels deep, and the next year, but then it gets a little shallow, sometimes, but I’m also talking about the deep, 20-year love, the deep deep ocean love, we have that up here, us guys. Yes that’s right, men can love men…but, with life comes weather, and with weather comes wind, and with wind you get waves, and there’s no way around it, with love there will be waves, big ones, small ones, this one’s called Amongst The Waves…”

After the crowd takes the Better Man intro, Ed interjects “…it’s really pretty from up here, it’s really nice…” and then holds the “Oh” for a long time before jumping back into the song. He improvs and riffs on the Save it for Later lyrics for a while before kicking into the “don’t run away” lines. Matt pounds out a short drum solo after Mike finishes up on Even Flow, and the crowd takes the last chorus. Ed speaks afterwards about the election, saying sarcastically “…it brings out the best in everybody…” but then imploring everyone to vote and bringing up the photo ID law again, adding that a firearms license would also be valid, which gets some boos from the crowd. Ed notices and says that got a bigger response in Florida, but that voting is your right, leading into T The Clash’s “Know Your Rights.” Crowd helps out on a lovely Nothingman and Ed asks for it again on Jeremy. He goes down and runs along the barricades during Porch. He speaks after the break:

“Now that, you know, the stage is built, we’re here, the buildings are all put up, and we’ve got people from front to back, we’re gonna play every second we can until they kick us out…”

Boom takes the whole Crazy Mary solo while Ed goes down to the barricade again and plays around with a cameraman. Given to Fly is dedicated to Steve Gleason. Ed talks about how a lot of PJ records were made in Atlanta with Brendan O’Brien, who is in attendance, and says that their name for Brendan behind his back is The Fixer. RVM has the slow build intro and the “I will forgive” lines during the jam. Ed thanks the local crew during the second break and points out a young kid up front, saying that’s a good sign that everything’s going well. He jokingly offers the kid wine and then adds “…tequila. Okay.” He continues:

“…all of the friends that we have that showed up to be here tonight…you know, if you get old enough you get a lot of friends, and we have a lot of ‘em here tonight. It’s just been a great, great vibe and we got great weather, great scenery, and it’s taken a bit of something to stick together for as long as we have without any kind of real hateful arguments or ever breaking up, and we’ve all supported each other through that…I told this story last night, and I usually don’t repeat it, but I was watching the PJ20 movie with a good friend of ours, and at one point Jeff was speaking, it was about halfway through, and she just said ‘Jeff Ament’s a fucking badass’…she’s absolutely right. You have no idea.”

“This one’s for the moon” introduces Unthought Known. Steve Gleason is side stage for the last few songs. After Black, Ed hurries the band to start Alive with the curfew fast approaching. He speaks quickly after Alive:

“They’re telling us that we only got two minutes…the next song’s, like, we’ll play it as fast as we can, but we gotta play one more…”

Someone from the festival comes on stage to talk to Ed and he says “I’ll pay for it,” referring to the fine for going past curfew, as they start a speedy Rockin’ in the Free World.