PJ20: Pearl Jam's 20th Anniversary

The 3rd of September 2011 is a cold and rainy day. The start of Pearl Jam's PJ20 tour/anniversary. We drove all the way to East Troy, WI for the show. This is the only venue in the whole United States where they will be performing. Other venues will be in Canada, Mexico and South America.

So it's just our luck that the day we picked to watch them is all cold and rainy. Lesson learned from Lollapalooza, buy/bring raincoats on concerts. You've spend the money buying the ticket, why not spare $3-5 dollars for the rain coat, right? We dropped by a nearby Walmart to get the raincoats, because we're not sure if they would be available at the concert venue (we later found out that they sold them, but it's the flimsy kind. Parang plastic labo)

Me, Topher and Rhandie with our rain coats on

We got there around 2pm but the band won't be performing 'til 9:30 pm. They setup 3 stages on the venue and we watched the other bands/artists while waiting for PJ to rock.

concert schedule

By 5pm, we left the smaller stage and went to the lawn on the Main Stage to catch a good spot. We would have bought tickets off the stage but unfortunately only lawn tickets were available when we bought ours. Bummer. It would have been real nice to have a proper seat while waiting for the band.

When Queen of the Stone Age graced the stage, we were stoked! We've been a fan since they had been on the Q101 playlist. The crowd went wild when they sang Little Sister and No One Knows. If you check the link/video on "No One Knows", you'd see that Dave Grohl played the drums for this song. How cool is that?

It was almost 10pm when Pearl Jam took the stage and oh boy, they did not disappoint! This is my first time watching them in concert and I was blown away. Eddie still have it. They all still have it. It's didn't seem like 20 years had already passed. Honestly, I wish the setlist that played had been more of their hits (which they all performed the following day) but seeing Temple of the Dog unite made up for it. I almost peed my pants when Chris Cornell took the stage with Eddie. They performed Hunger Strike together. You HAVE to watch the video below!

I have to post the following crappy pictures from my phone as a proof that we were really there! It sucks when you can't bring a proper camera for concerts like these. These things doesn't happen everyday, you know.

Below are the pictures from their official concert photo stream. Great photos.

09.03.2011 - Official Pearl Jam photos by Anna Knowlden

09.03.2011 - Official Pearl Jam photos by Anna Knowlden

09.03.2011 - Official Pearl Jam photos by Anna Knowlden

09.04.2011 - Official Pearl Jam photos by Karen Loria

09.04.2011 - Official Pearl Jam photos by Karen Loria

09.04.2011 - Official Pearl Jam photos by Anna Knowlden (more official photos here)

If you're interested to know the setlist they played that night and the following night, you can check it here: Sept 03 setlist and Sept 04 setlist. We should have went to both shows! The concert wrapped up at around 1am and it took us about another hour to get off the parking grounds and head back to Chicago.

We had Pearl Jam hangover for about two weeks after the concert. Listening to their songs over and over and over again. I would love to catch them again live. There's to hoping for another concert next year.