Wow, so tonight was the last show of Media Decay’s Pearl Jam week, and also the last show of this leg of Pearl Jam’s tour. It was the second night at New York’s famous Madison Square Garden, and revered home of some legendary Pearl Jam performances. This show in particular sold out incredibly fast and tickets were almost impossible to get. Everyone wanted to be there. Everyone was hoping for something spectacular. And the band delivered. They not only delivered a super energetic 2 hour 40 minute set, but they delivered a crazy setlist and even a “new” song (more on that a little later). Perhaps the best part was that thanks to my fan club membership and a worked out trade with another fan club member, I found myself sitting in the 11th row center for this amazing show.
I’ve just returned home from the second show of Media Decay’s Pearl Jam week. Tonight was the first of a 2 night run at Madison Square Garden. Pearl Jam has played some legendary shows at the Garden and is best known for the show they eventually wound up releasing as a dvd(note please buy it through that link and get an awesome show and help support us bringing you features like these). It’s like their second home and people fly in from around the world to see them play there. As such not only are both shows sold out, but the fan club tickets were nearly impossible to get. The server crashed before they even actually went onsale. But I managed to get them and as such found myself sitting dead center on the floor of Madison Square Garden.
Well it’s the first show of Pearl Jam week here at Media Decay and we’re kicking it off in Newark, NJ. This was a sort of last minute show. It was announced after the rest of the tour and went on sale several weeks after the rest of the tour as well. Eddie Vedder mentioned at one point that this show almost didn’t happen but they were glad it did. Anyway there was some trepidation going into this show. Last night in Boston the band put on an incredible show (and also had incredible one off t-shirts made to look like Red Sox shirts, Newark got the shirt above, hopefully they’ll pull out something awesome for NYC) so a lot of the hardcores were worried this show wouldn’t be as great. We’ll I wasn’t at the Boston show so I can’t speak to anything but the setlist, but the band certainly didn’t let it show they’d just done an epic show the night before.
Pearl Jam is one of my favorite bands of all time and they’re great in concert as you can tell from the last Great Concerts post. This week they’re playing NYC and I’ll be there. So this week I’ll be seeing them 3 times in 4 days and re-counting every show right here on this site. So happy Pearl Jam week on Media Decay.
PS one of the main computers I use for material for this site died on me and is in the process of being replaced so a few planned articles have been held up, like our next Great Concerts posting that’s way overdue.
Hype! is a 1996 documentary by the great Doug Pray (his first feature). It’s an in depth look at the northwest rock explosion, otherwise known as grunge. It uses the people who are/were there to really tell the true story that normally you wouldn’t get from what was essentially a very closed off community. This happens to be one of my favorite films of all time and that’s why I’m writing about it here. First check out the trailer:
The latest installment of our Great Concerts series is all about Pearl Jam. I’ve been to many great Pearl Jam concerts and they will definitely pop up again in this series but I thought I’d start with one of their more memorable shows. As usual click on song links to stream them and the full concert is available to download at the end of the post.
This show took place at Downing Stadium at Randall’s Island on September 29th 1996, the second night of a 2 night run and part of the No Code tour. For those of you non-New Yorkers (and maybe some who are), Randall’s Island is technically a part of Manhattan, although it is it’s own island situated in the East River between Manhattan, The Bronx, and Queens and is only accessible via the Triborough Bridge (now the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge). Meaning you either need a car or one of the shuttle buses that run to the island. Downing Stadium (replaced in 2005 by a more modern structure) was basically constructed for track & field events. It was a big open outdoor structure with giant concrete seating areas surrounding it. It was pretty massive and used for things like Lollapalooza.
This series of posts are all about cool holiday gifts, for you or the people you care about. We’ll be including tons of cool stuff in the categories we cover on the site. Since this is our first year we’re going to not limit ourselves to just stuff that came out over the past few months, we’re going to include a bunch of other awesome stuff as well. Think of this as your definitive source for the coolest gifts for the coolest people you know. Our first post is all about music related goodies.
Spinnerette is the new band from Brody Dalle of The Distillers. Together with Alain Johannes, Tony Bevilacqua (another Distillers member), and Jack Irons (formerly of Pearl Jam) they released their first full length album earlier this year after endlessly teasing us with EPs.
Today’s recommendation is for not one but 2 songs off of Pearl Jam’s “Backspacer” album. I’d actually recommend the entire album as it’s great, but these two songs are special stand outs. continue reading…
(note please buy it through that link and get an awesome show and help support us bringing you features like these). It’s like their second home and people fly in from around the world to see them play there. As such not only are both shows sold out, but the fan club tickets were nearly impossible to get. The server crashed before they even actually went onsale. But I managed to get them and as such found myself sitting dead center on the floor of Madison Square Garden.
