Pearl Jam Santiago, CL Concert History

Corduroy opener sets the tone for a festival-friendly set, headlining the first evening at Lollapalooza. Crowd is phenomenal, jumping and clapping throughout. I Am Mine is on the setlist but Even Flow is played instead. Ed dons a Trump clown mask during the Another Brick in the Wall tag, subbing out the word ‘teacher’ to shout: “Hey! Gunman! Leave those kids alone,” an allusion to the Parkland massacre. After Got Some, he speaks in Spanish, reading from a notebook: “We’ve spent a week in Chile and we’ve met a lot of cool Chileans, people with smiling eyes, faces and souls. We’re going to play a new song, ‘Can’t Deny Me,’ about united people who have more power than the government. We’ll record during this song to show my country how a large group of very united people with good energy looks like.” Ed comments on the recent nuclear bomb false alarm in Hawaii after Porch, saying “after 20 minutes, they realized it was a false alarm. Our friend Casper was there with his family. It was crazy. I wish for a new leader. Someone we can trust during these crazy times!” Ed improvs during the Sirens ‘reprise,’ singing: “‘Cause’ every one of you/every one of you/is loved in this world/got love in this world/got love to the world.” An array of fireworks are set off during RITFW, highlighting a set full of 90’s favorites.

Written by: Lila Barzegar

The 2018 tour kicks off with an arena show in Chile, serving as a warmup for the Lollapalooza gigs that would follow. The band takes the crowd on an early tour of almost every album, with the first 8 songs coming from 8 different albums. Ed holds the last line in Low Light for a long time to the delight of the crowd. Animal gets the entire floor pogoing and singing along. An extended jam leads into Love Boat Captain. Corduroy has the new middle section and builds to a stellar ending, tons of energy. Ed speaks to the crowd in Spanish, saying that even after all this time his Spanish is still “shit.” Before Mike takes over Even Flow, Ed exclaims “Vamos, Miguel, vamos!” The crowd is on fire during Given to Fly. Eruption is introduced as “a gift for you from Mike…and Eddie.” Can’t Deny Me is debuted, having been released just 3 days prior, and is dedicated (in Spanish) to the Parkland survivors, and Emma Gonzalez in particular. Rare appearance of Around the Bend to begin the encore. After Come Back, a roadie brings out a cake for Jeff’s birthday and ends up getting it in his own face, Jeff only just taking a finger of it. Ed takes a couple of pieces and tosses them into the crowd. Boom and Mike duel back and forth many times during the Crazy Mary jam. Cool moment as the crowd sings the guitar intro to Better Man along with Ed. Mike absolutely wails on an 8+ minute Black and Comfortably Numb. Ed takes a Chilean flag with “Pearl Jam” written on it and drapes it over his monitors during Alive. Last Kiss is for the back, with Ed up on the drum riser behind Matt and the rest of the band making their way behind the stage during the song. After a closing Indifference, Ed thanks the crowd “for being a great wave…we got to surf.”

Ed changes the third “Oh…dear Dad…” in Release to “Oh dear Red…can you see this now…” He encourages the crowd to join in during Do the Evolution, calling out “C’mon! Louder than Buenos Aires!” After Corduroy, the crowd begins the “Olé” chant, and Ed asks the crowd “Como estas?” followed by “Estoy bien.” He adds “Chile, you can call me!” to Not For You, finishing the song off with the Modern Girl tag. He also pays a compliment to Chile, their pretty country and people. Towards the end of Daughter, he asks Kille to turn the lights up and gets the crowd to join him for It’s O.K. by singing “Esta bien” and proceeds to sing the rest of it in Spanish, again asking them to be louder than Buenos Aires. Elderly Woman starts with “una, dos, tres, una, dos, tres” and they deliver a beautiful rendition with Stone sounding perfect on the acoustic. After the break, Ed says it’s a special day and drapes the Chilean flag over Mike’s shoulders, and they sing Happy Birthday to him. Ed recognises a guy in the crowd who had joined them on stage previously, and invites him up on stage to play with them again. The fan, Juan Pablo, joins them, Ed asks him not to break his guitar, and they bust out Sonic Reducer. Perry Farrell enters for Rockin’ in the Free World, on the tambourine and back up vocals, while fireworks go off in the background. Josh Homme also puts in an appearance for the last bit of RITFW while Eddie scans the crowd with a set of binoculars. Perry calls out “Pearl Jam!” as Mike plays the opening riff for Yellow Ledbetter. Ed closes the night wishing the audience well in his broken Spanish.

With a ‘buenos noches’ introduction, the band takes a loud chanting crowd on the way with Unthought Known as the opener. The intensity continues through the set as the crowd drives the band through the set. Ole works really well here as a lead in to Corduroy. After Corduroy the crowd leads an Ole chant of their own. This is followed by Ed asking, and then pleading, the crowd to take three steps back to help alleviate some of the people up front. The crowd doesn’t listen at first, which leads to Ed begging the crowd to move, for which they oblige. Small Town is in a great spot after having to tell the crowd to move and look out for each other. Cropduster makes one of its last appearances in a set to date with only three more performances coming after this. Another Brick In The Wall pt. 2 is tagged to Daughter, which causes Ed to say:

“It’s not teacher leave those kids alone, it’s government let the teachers teach, it’s government pay so the students can learn.”

Peter Gabriel song Red Rain is tagged for the first time ever following the Pink Floyd tag. Setting Forth is introduced as ”about a kid named Chris McCandless, Into the Wild” while Nothingman is intro’d by saying “that this one is about a big mistake.” Jeremy is played as a rare closer to the main set. Encore 1 set begins with a beautiful version of Just Breathe and the energy is brought right up with a joyous Down. A quick “Para mi amigo Johnny Ramone, I miss ya” leads into one of the most rocking I Believe In Miracles renditions that they’ve ever played. Eddie says a guy from the crowd who had a sign was going to be on the stage, but he gets tossed up on the setlist as World Wide Suicide is played first. At the conclusion of the song, Eddie introduces Juan Pablo to play along with them on Last Kiss. Ed says that he also asked Mike McCready to marry him! He gets Ed’s guitar and slug of wine before the band kicks in. Ed gives a shout out to X who opened the show before Rearviewmirror ends a stimulating first encore.

Encore 2 seems like they are trying to get in as many songs as possible before a curfew as there is very little chatter in between the songs. McCready and Boom have an excellent back and forth on their solos during Crazy Mary. Alive and Baba are great and lead into the double closers of Indifference and Yellow Ledbetter to cap off a crazy evening in Chile. Ed compliments the crowd calling them a perfect crowd, and the crowd returns the favor with a chant of their own. Ed sends some muchos gracias forever to the crowd on their way off the stage.