... Pearl Jam @ Kitchener

The year, 2005. The blessed Blue States were pondering secession from Muricah. Many people pondered moving to Canada. Pearl Jam, who were at loose ends and between albums and deals, decided to do a tour of Canada. And this wasn't just a tour of he big cities: they were going to play a lot of smaller venues, a little out of the way.

The time was perfect for our first real Pearl Jam Road Trip. We couldn't do all the shows, so we picked a few and loaded up the car.

The first stop:

Pearl Jam @ Kitchener Memorial Auditorium, Kitchener, Ontario - September 11th, 2005

Opening act: Sleater-Kinney. They opened for Pearl Jam on every show of this tour, and would break up not too long afterwards.

Click here for the set list.

These shows may have well been fan club only shows, especially in places like Kitchener. The Aud is a small hockey rink and it seemed like the majority of people there were fan club members. It was there that we met a couple whose name escapes me, so I'll call them the Patriot Shirt Couple, as he had a Patriot shirt from the Vote for Change tour. We struck up a conversation because (1) they were next to us and (2) they really admired Dawn's "Choices" t-shirt (one of the most popular early Pearl Jam t-shirts, it featured the slogan "9 out of 10 kids prefer crayons to guns"). We got talking about shows we had been to, comparing notes, trying to guess set lists. It was fun. It was connecting with like minded souls.

At one point a chorus of "O Canada" started (small towns, hockey rinks, sigh) and the crowd lustfully joined in. At the end of the there was a cheer, and then the house lights went down and the stage came up, and the show started. Conicidence? Possibly. Cool? Yeah, kinda, I'll give you that.

As I've said, Pearl Jam knows how to connect with its audience. This night was a great example of that. The small arena, the crowd ready to go, and the general atmosphere of the tour pulsed through the set. Although they had no new material, nothing to flog, they played like they had everything to prove. The set was loud, fast, and at times out of control. Check out the main set: most of their harder stuff was there. And then the first encore, a little more personal and anthemic, and then the final set exploded the show and then brought it down to Earth with "Yellow Ledbetter".

The show has no one great moment, no amazing you-had-to-be-there part (those are coming up...). But it was a very important show. Pearl Jam was rediscovering itself. On this tour they reconnected with the energy of their live show and with their fans. They exorcised the devils and the anger that they and a lot of Americans felt at that time and discovered, like so much of us did, that if we just banded together and drew on each other's strength we'd make it through this.