When I heard that Pearl Jam were playing at the Hard Rock Calling festival, I immediately bought tickets without caring much for the rest of the line up. To be fair, the other bands we saw put on a great show – Expatriate (who I suspect was Stacey’s favourite), Gaslight Anthem (who I’d never heard of but was well impressed with), The Hives (who replaced Wolfmother after they pulled out due to sickness) and Ben Harper (Mr Charismatic). But for me, it was always about seeing Pearl Jam!
I was quite impressed with their set list, which I felt was a great mix of older and newer songs. Most impressively, they played for over two hours, which is huge for a festival. We started off the show somewhere in the middle of the crowd, until Aubain, Wes and I tried to bury ourselves in a bit deeper. We managed to make it maybe 30 metres further in, but the wall of people eventually became too difficult to penetrate, so we settled in and enjoyed the rest of the show. Yes, the days of fighting the crowds to get to the front are well and truly over, but I’m ok with that!
Given that Ben Harper had played right before Pearl Jam, I was somewhat expecting a guest appearance during PJ’s set. And, given that Eddie had come out to perform a cover of Under Pressure with Ben Harper during his set, I was even more confident that the favour would be return. And I wasn’t disappointed! Ben Harper waltzed onto the stage to join the band in playing Red Mosquito – and if there was ever a Pearl Jam song made for Ben Harper’s slide guitar, this has got to be it!
Anyway – here’s a short video of two panoramas from within the crowd (from our first spot and then our second). There’s an outside chance that it includes some awesome singing on my part, too.
View the Hard Rock Calling photo album on Picasa.
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[...] in June, when my favourite visitors of all – Pearl Jam – were in town, many of our other favourite visitors were in town as well! And yes, I would [...]