Lucky Stars In Your Eyes...

Well, this is the first of what will likely be MANY Pearl Jam/Eddie Vedder posts in this blog's future (although I promised myself that I would try my best to give an interesting mix... After all, there are a MILLION (far superior) Pearl Jam-dedicated blogs already doing a fantastic job out there. But a few weeks ago Alicia and I had tickets to see Eddie Vedder on his East Coast Solo tour, mostly in support of his BRILLIANT Soundtrack to Sean Penn's film "Into the Wild."

Playing 2 consecutive nights (August 4th and 5th) at Harlem's United Palace Theater, we scored tickets to both nights, and while there were many songs that crossed over both night's sets, there were several rarities and standout tracks special to each night that definitely made a repeat viewer happy.

Although Pearl Jam (and Eddie Vedder in particular) have been completely gracious and approving of live taping/trading/bootlegging, for some reason these small club shows have been extremely difficult (to near impossible) to get a hold of, so while I would LOVE to get a 'boot of these 2 nights, I simply have not been able to so far.

However, this was leg-2 of the tour, the first leg being the West Coast in April, and I was able to scrounge up a 'boot from that tour, so I offer it to you in the hopes that someone reading this blog might have more that they are willing to share.

The setlist is fantastic, filled with rarities, a light and jokey Eddie, some laughing, some noisy drum-cirlce outside the theater that makes Eddie screw up a couple of times... political activism (he prides himself that the right wing media refers to him, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins as the "Activists of Evil" HA!) an urge to vote, the list goes on.

Standouts on the fantastic setlist are "Growin' Up" (Bruce Springsteen), "Millworker" (James Taylor), and an amazingly reworked and modernized "here's to the State..." by Phil Ochs, updated to skewer Cheney, Roberts, and Bush (the REAL AXIS).

Here's the tracklisting;

01 Introduction Music, Tuolumne
02 Walking The Cow (Daniel Johnston)
03 Around The Bend
04 I Am Mine
05 Talk: (Never went to school)
06 Dead Man
07 Talk: (You Think this is just music...)
08 I'm Open
09 Man of the Hour
10 Talk: (The Worst Fucking Drum Circle...)
11 Setting Forth
12 Guaranteed
13 No Ceiling
14 Far Behind
15 Rise
16 Millworker (James Taylor)
17 Goodbye
18 Talk: (West Memphis Three)
19 Satellite
20 Drifting
21 Youve Got To Hide Your Love Away (Beatles)
22 Talk: (Intro to Heres To The State)
23 Heres To The State... (Phil Ochs)
24 Trouble (Cat Stevens)
25 If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out (Cat Stevens)
26 Talk: (Now you guys shut the fuck up)
27 Parting Ways
28 Forever Young (Bob Dylan)
29 Porch
30 Talk: (Encore break and intro to Society)
31 Society (with Jerry Hannan)
32 Growin Up (Bruce Springsteen)
33 Lukin
34 Talk: (Intro to No More, Body of War)
35 No More
36 Arc
37 Hard Sun (Gordon Peterson)


Download: Eddie Vedder 2008 Solo ITW Tour, Berkley, CA