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Pearl Jam played the Wachovia Spectrum on 10-27-2009 in Philadelphia,PA.  Pearl Jam had the great honor to bring the entire building to a close by performing four shows in one week (10-27-09, 10-28-09, 10-30-09, 10-31-09), with the run concluding on Halloween night.  Pearl Jam have been long time fans of Social Distortion and so they gave Social Distortion the opening slot on 10-27-2009 and 10-28-2009 while Bad Religion had the honor of opening up on 10-30-2009 and 10-31-2009.  Social Distortion opened the show and their photos can be found here.

I was fortunate to be able to photograph two of the four  (but attend all four) last shows ever to be held at the Spectrum.  I photographed Pearl Jam and the opening bands on the nights of the 27th and the 31st.   The Spectrum in Philadelphia has long been holding historical sporting events, concerts, movie moments, and  millions of other memories for a worldwide audience.  One of my earliest  memories is one of the most popular moments for the Spectrum was when Rocky boxed to win his first title of the Rocky movie series.

 It was great to see Pearl Jam come out to the stage with the Rocky intro blasting through the speakers.  And now the legend of the building ends with a historic 4 night residency by Pearl Jam and friends.  The first three songs of the night (“Corduroy”, “Whipping”, “Hail Hail”) were an awesome rocking way to start a four night stand.

This series of concerts was all about the fans and Pearl Jam having fun together.  Eddie Vedder quipped that the show on the 31st would last until 2AM and that they will try to play every song they know in the 4 shows.  While neither was true, Eddie Vedder has long been the sarcastic joker and most fans knew not to take him too seriously.   Eddie Vedder noted that one of his idols, Bruce Springsteen, played the Spectrum a week before them and heard that he really rocked the place and no disrespect to them but “We did not come here to be the clean-up crew” noting that Pearl Jam will be ones tearing the building down.

Another light hearted moment was before Mankind. Eddie Vedder announced that he read on the Pearl Jam message boards that Stone had quit the band in order to spend more time as a father.  They said it was all true and that they plead with Stone to stay with the band and the only way he would stay is if they let him sing “Mankind”.  “Mankind” is a song that is written and sung by Stone and it is very rarely played.  Stone jokingly agreed saying that he liked to be the a**hole in the band but glad he got to play his song.

Rare songs is another theme of the four shows, some gems were dusted off after many years of dormancy and somesongs were played that have never been played live before.  One of those rarely played songs which was last played in 2003 is “Rival” off the album Binuaral.  In addition to rare songs, they also started the second set of music off each night with the addition of some some of Philadelphia’s own string orchestra players.  On this night only two songs were accompanied with strings,  ”Just Breathe” and “All Those Yesterdays”

The crowds during this four night stand were epic and excited, not only for the concerts themselves but the Philadelphia Phillies were also in a battle for the World Series against the New York Yankees.  Many “Let’s Go Phillies” chants took place at random parts of the concert, Pearl Jam embraced the energy by dedicating songs to Phillies players and also providing score updates to the fans throughout the residency which only got the fans stirred up even more.  Eddie Vedder is big Chicago Cubs fan but he knows how to entertain an audience and keep them happy.

Another nice change in the setlist was that they played only a few cover songs during the residency, one cover song that I am glad they played this night though is The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me”.  This is a perfected cover of an already awesome song.  Eddie Vedder’s screaming howl during the choruses nearly tore down the Spectrum on its own.  You wonder how he can sing a song like that on night one and still have a voice left over for the 4thand final show…. Incredible, amazing, and astonishing night by one of the bes touring bands in the world, Pearl Jam.

The setlist for the night was as follows:

Main Set: Corduroy, Whipping, Hail Hail, Supersonic, Dissident, Unthought Known, Faithfull, Parachutes, Unemployable, Immortality, Green Disease, Not For You/Modern Girl, Rival, Nothingman, Ghost, Do The Evolution, Why Go

Encore 1: Bee Girl, Just Breathe (w/ Philly String Quartet), The End (w/ Philly String Quartet), All Those Yesterdays, State of Love and Trust, Mankind, The Fixer, Go

Encore 2: Daughter, Love Reign O’er Me, Black/We Belong Together, Leash, Rearviewmirror, Rockin’ In The Free World