Pearl Jam – Lima, Peru 2011 – PJ20 Tour

Setlist

  1. Interstellar Overdrive
  2. Corduroy
  3. Why Go
  4. Hail, Hail
  5. Do The Evolution
  6. Severed Hand
  7. Immortality
  8. Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
  9. The Fixer
  10. Even Flow
  11. Setting Forth
  12. Not For You
  13. Lukin
  14. Amongst The Waves
  15. Better Man / Save it for Later
  16. Black
  17. Go
  18. The End (Encore I starts)
  19. Just Breathe
  20. Daughter / Blitzkrieg Bop / W.M.A.
  21. Unthought Known
  22. Olé
  23. Blood
  24. Jeremy
  25. Porch (Encore I ends)
  26. Given To Fly (Encore II begins)
  27. Last Kiss
  28. The Real Me
  29. Alive
  30. Rockin’ In The Free World (feat. X)
  31. Indifference
  32. Yellow Ledbetter (Encore II ends)

Pearl Jam’s first-ever concert held in Lima, Peru at the San Marcos stadium might be easily one of the top contenders for concert of the year around here.

To kick things off, American punk band X played at 8pm. Songs they played included Los Angeles, Who You Know and a cover of The Doors’ Soul Kitchen. The highlight of X’s performance was when Pearl Jam frontman, Eddie Vedder — yes, you read right — showed up on stage earlier than expected and sang Devil Doll with X’s Exene Cervenka (Viggo Mortensen’s ex-wife) to close the opening act’s performance. Vedder’s appearance actually woke up the crowd, who didn’t care much for X after four songs, and the crowd’s excitement and expectations to see Pearl Jam increased astronomically.

The crowd went batshit crazy earlier on when Pearl Jam hit the stage around 9:17 pm. Corduroy made everyone excited, singing and juming around, pushing anything in sight and even some fans — myself included — were pretty close to getting asphyxiated thanks to the back and forth pushing around and the smell of weed. Shortly after Do The Evolution, Vedder himself told the crowd in the first rows to take care of themselves and enjoy the show. And when Eddie says something, you obey, no questions asked.

The rest of the concert flowed smoothly thanks to a great setlist, as the band continued to play songs from Backspacer, Yield and Vitalogy, as well as classics from Ten and Vs. Even covers from The Who, Wayne Cocran — most Peruvians would be reminded of The Doltons for Last Kiss — and The Ramones were played during the concert.

Despite Eddie Vedder being one of the greatest showman I’ve seen live, Mike McCready stole the show with his amazing guitar skills and seemed to embrace the Peruvian crowd more than the rest of the band; he fell in love with the ceviche and spent the morning surfing before the concert took place. [1]

And while I really enjoyed hearing songs like Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Unthought Known, The Fixer, Alive and Better Man live, I have to admit that one of the show’s biggest highlights was a romantic moment with Eddie dedicating Just Breathe to a recently married couple from their production team, who were on their honeymoon and sat on stage while the song lasted. [1]

Really great concert, whose only setbacks were watching parts of the crowd overuse their cameras as if their lives depended on it and most importanly, an unnecessary extra barricade near the stage that made the concert kind of dangerous earlier on thanks to the fast paced songs until Eddie calmed the crowds down.

Pearl Jam will tour around Costa Rica and Mexico soon. For more information, check out the band’s website.

Photo credit to Miguel Bustamante from Terra Perú.

Rodrigo

YAM Magazine contributor, has a B. Sc. degree in Science/Pharmacy and is a very lazy person.

9 Responses

  1. Mrwirez says:

    Great review! Lucky … PJ Rocks!

    • Rodrigo says:

      @Mrwirez, Thanks, glad you liked the review.

      • Mrwirez says:

        @Rodrigo, I saw PJ in Pittsburgh PA in 1992 (Lollapaloza 2) and in 2006. They remain one of my favorite bands and bring me fond memories. Glad your ribs and lungs are ok.. I got crushed at a Metallica concert in 1988. I know how you feel! Nice talking to a new friend in Peru!

        • Rodrigo says:

          @Mrwirez, Lollapalooza 2? That’s really awesome!

          I would like to see Pearl Jam again. Maybe they’ll come back here when they have to promote their 10th album, which I think it’ll be done next year.

          I saw Metallica last year and they were amazing live, but I had seating tickets rather than stand-up like with PJ, so I didn´t experience getting crushed by the crowd. Yet, I saw like 1/3 the stadium using cameras during Creeping Death.

  2. amy says:

    “most peruvians would be reminded about The Doltons for Last Kiss”

    That would be me, thank you very much. LOL

    Good to know you made it alive from the concert, and that you got just a little bit high for free. ;D I think most people reviewing concerts are always going to talk about people with their cameras up. I suffer from it too and I carry a camera! Sometimes it’s impossible to get a clear shot, so you gotta work around on that.

    At least Pearl Jam didn’t stop the concert like Bjork xD

    Best concert of the year? Beating Paul?

    • Rodrigo says:

      @amy, The camera issue should be worthy of another debate – it’s an interesting topic.

      Being asphyxiated is not fun. :(

      And Bjork’s concert… Limp Bizkit’s was way more painful in that aspect.

      It could easily be one of the best concerts of the year. I personally think Vedder topped McCartney as a showman, but back from home, my brother, a friend and I discussed some of the flaws on PJ´s concert. Still, it was a very enjoyable concert.

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