... Pearl Jam @ Buffalo

But first, the moment that changed our lives.

Pearl Jam likes its fans. Most bands do, but Pearl Jam is one of the bands that really goes out of its way to look after its fans. It also likes to make everything as fair as possible for everyone. That's why they often wind up tilting at windmills like taking on Ticketmaster.

This love of fans led Dawn to finally join the Pearl Jam Fan Club, or Ten Club. One of the benefits of joining is being able to purchase tickets for upcoming concerts, and getting to buy them early. This means that the area in front of the stage (and to the sides, depending on the set up) is made up of hard core Pearl Jam fans. To keep things fair, tickets are not allotted by random draw or things like that but by how long you've been a member of the Ten Club. If you've put in more time, you get closer. This means that you don't get people who just joined the club to get the early purchase date having prime seats in front of the stage. It also means you're going to see a lot of the same people on a tour.

This, as I said before, changed our life. Being able to follow Pearl Jam was going to become more interesting and a lot easier to do. We weren't going to have to jump through a lot of hoops to sit up in the rafters, and we were going to be part of a group of people who wanted the experience as much as we wanted it: no sitting next to drunken "I got the ticket from my friend" dude. These were people who wanted to be there.

And so...

Pearl Jam @ HSBC Arena, Buffalo, New York - May 2, 2003

Opening act: Sparta. We missed them completely and I regret this now because I'm a big At the Drive-In fan, and this is one of the two groups that rose from its ashes. Can you name the other?

Click here for the set list.

Read the set list.

Read it.

I want you to really take your time and read it closely. Because I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to tell it to you now.

This is the greatest concert I have ever been to.

Full stop. End of line. NO CARRIER+++. That's beyond just Pearl Jam. It's the greatest rock concert I've ever been to, and likely ever will.

Riot Act is the most underrated album in their discography. People will say No Code is, and they're right, but you never find anyone that considers Riot Act their best while some will consider No Code for that role. But Riot Act was part of a rebirth for the band. They started rocking harder, Matt Cameron started flexing his muscle (he's the John Paul Jones of grunge), and the band became more of a band.

That's what was on show that night. It wasn't Eddie Vedder and Co (a designation that Eddie hates), but it was Pearl FRAKING Jam. They played a tight main set. Compare that setlist to some of the others I've posted and you see that it's much more even, fewer swings in mood.

Now look at the encores. First of all, there are THREE of them, and they are mostly covers. "Some say the last night of the tour is the best," Eddie said at one point during the show, "but really, it's the second to last show that's the best". They played with wild abandon for the entire night, like this was the last waltz for everyone involved. And they really connected with their fans. During "People have the Power" Eddie pulled a woman from the audience on stage to hold the lyric sheet for him, and danced with her during the choruses. You can actually see this moment if you have the excellent Live at Madison Square Garden DVD during the "Fortunate Son" compilation.

The show was entering its third hour when the band came on stage for what was supposed to be the third encore. During this time the lights had flared up a little, and we were wondering what was up. Eddie took the microphone "A lot of these places have a curfew, and you have to be out at a certain time or you start paying crazy money, like, for every 15 minutes. And we're already 30 minutes over." Booos. "So we talked backstage and we agreed....Mike McCready will pay the fine tonight. F--k it, the Bush tax cut made us rich!"

And with that the house lights stayed up and they ripped through "Baba O'Reilly". Afterwards Mike started playing the Hendrix-like riffs that make up "Yellow Ledbetter", one of the most heartfelt and emotional Pearl Jam tracks (you can't really call it a song...). They played while some of the roadies started packing gear up. They played their hearts out. They ripped through solos while Eddie sang those notes that pretty much make the heart of any Pearl Jam fan melt a little. I couldn't help it, I started welling up (and am a little bit now). I looked to my left for a second and noticed that a lot of the crowd was moving into the aisles, some just standing there but in general moving forward, not to be closer to their idol or to touch the hem of his garment but just because the moment called for it. It was a moment when fan and band were the same, when they were staying past their metaphorical bedtime and knew the moment was going to end soon so it just had to be marked in some way.

Mike vamped at the end of the song, like he always did. The band left the stage one by one. The lights stayed up. The house music came up. The set started to come down.

And I knew I had found where I belonged.