Episode 47: Madison Square Garden – 5/20/2010

We are back to our 2019 long MSG series taking a look at every show the band performed at the World’s Most Famous Arena. This episode we cover Night 1 of 2010 – a show that gets overshadowed by the magic of the following night, but in its own right has its memorable moments.

Randy was in attendance on this night, and although it was over nine years ago and the memories have faded a bit, there are big moments that still stick out to him as some of his favorite live moments to this day. Most of the moments were courtesy of the red hot crowd that poured their heart and soul into this show. Renditions of Elderly Woman, Once, Crazy Mary and Indifference as the closer have incredible crowd participation, so much so that you can hear the crowd better on the boot than you can Ed.

But with all of this show’s ups there were also some downs from this night. While the crowd and overall performance of the band was a huge strength, the meaty part of the first set left a little to be desired. They got off to a hot start, but after Even Flow the set lacked a powerful punch and defining moment. As John mentions in the episode, it felt like they randomly chose tracks from different albums and blindly placed them in the set. Lots of topics to cover here for all you set list nerds!