Episode 375: Amsterdam, NED – 6/13/2018

The Chronology Series this week takes us to 2018, a year with big shows and even bigger storylines. On Pearl Jam’s European run in London, Ed played the show with his vocal chords being not even close to his usual standards. He was placed on vocal rest for a few days causing the following show in London to be canceled. While he would come back strong on the rest of the tour, this would be the first of multiple times in the last handful of years where Ed has his share of vocal trouble, leading to song and setlist structure changes that would impact future shows.

The Amsterdam show that we’re covering in this episode took place two shows before London, and there are many moments in this show where it was clear that Eddie was not at his best. His range will peak at times, the vocal power would run out of gas and it was not the performance that he is clearly known to bring to the table. There is also the factor that this set had only 27 songs with one encore and lasted about two hours and fifteen minutes. At the time in 2018, that was unfathomable for an arena show to have this outcome, but it would later become the norm in the post-Covid era.

We’ll look at those storylines objectively and try to find moments that make this show feel memorable. Songs like Untitled/MFC, 1/2 Full, Inside Job and Rearviewmirror were all hits, so we’ll give them their due, and perhaps do the opposite for Can’t Deny Me. All of that, and find out what snack Javi irrationally has a hatred for.