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So. I made it to the Pearl Jam shows and back. In one piece. Raleigh was great night with a good setlist. A decent number of new songs (which are what I wanted to hear), and a few nostalgic ones as well. (read: Alive) True to form, Evenflow showed up, and I got a good Corduroy and Given to Fly. Eddie's funny in GtF. Also, he says practically nothing during the whole show... mighty strange. I didn't get to see the opening band, but they came out for Fortunate Son and Rockin' In the Free World for the encore. It was alright. Growing tired of RitFW tho.

Charlotte was a really weird show too... not in that Eddie didn't talk, but that they played pretty much every single off Ten (Black, Jeremy, Evenflow, and Alive) and very few Riot Act tracks (Save You, Green Disease, Love Boat Captain). We did get another Corduroy, so that was cool. Not to mention getting to hear Breath. No State of Love and Trust either night tho... disappointing. I did see Sleater-Kinney this time, however, and I liked them. They played hard and their voices were really interesting. Nice to have fun with the opening band. Oh, and we heard Eddie at the pre-set singing Driftin' by himself. I REALLY like that song and wish we would have seen him, but hearing it was pretty cool too.

Didn't go to Nashville and Atlanta. Should have. They FINALLY played Bush Leaguer in Nashville for the first time since those 24 people walked out in Denver, Know Your Rights made another appearance, and Steve Earle sang Fortunate Son in the encore. Other than that, tho, I don't suppose I was THAT thrilled with Nashville. I really really would have liked to have gone to Atlanta tho. Baba O'Riley AND Yellow Ledbetter in the second encore. Plus Crazy Mary with Boom's amazing keyboard solo. The rare You've Got to Hide Your Love Away, State of Love and Trust, Glorified G, Porch, 5 new songs, AND Crown of freaking Thorns. I can't believe I didn't go to that show... Live and learn... I guess... but I'm not too sure what I was supposed to learn...

Enough about Pearl Jam I suppose... CIF played a really good show at the Visulite here in Charlotte the Saturday before. Dustin's voice was back on track, which was GREAT. I know Mike, Mason, and Brian are all really really great musicians, but, really, I have the most fun when Dustin's voice is %100 and he really makes the show his. He can do the rhythmic singing thing very well. But anyway, all-in-all, the band was tight, and I thought the show went really well. A kick-ass Soky was the encore and the energetic crowd got them out for a second encore and a rockin' rendition of Baba O'Riley. (So take THAT, Pearl Jam. Bitches.) I was pretty stoked about this show and was hoping to post a more in depth review thing that really would just make me feel good about writing even if noone ever read it. And I wanted to post it so everyone else could hear it. Unfortunately, the CD was over in the middle of Soky Fair. Sucked, but I figured the Baba encore was a cool thing to have saved just for the crowd. Sucked even more to find out that the recording of the whole show got screwed, so we ended up with nothing. Hope that everyone who went enjoyed it. If you didn't go... Shame on you. It was well worth the ten bucks.

CityFest is this weekend... Live was supposed to play on Saturday. I'm a big Live fan. If you ever looked at my cd database, you know this. I was excitied. Bought my tickets way in advance. Foo Fighters'll be there on Saturday too. Sounds awesome. Then I hear that Collective Soul (?!?!?) is going to show up on Friday. I thought they were heading out due to some lineup changes... guess I was wrong. So, I was super-psyched, cuz I like Collective Soul too. They're a GREAT radio band and I like most of the CD's as well as the singles. But then I found out that Collective Soul was REPLACING Live instead of supporting them. Last time I saw them, I had to sit through Counting Crows as the main act. Then, they skipped this area all together for the V tour, and now they cancel the show?? NOT happy with Ed and the boys right now. I don't think I have anything else to whine about or criticize right now. If something comes to me, it'll probably be here. I'll do my best to get another good CIF show uploaded by the end of next week.

Today was Shakespeare's birthday, btw. RIP
And my dad's birthday too. RIP

life and transience and whatnot...