Reviewed by ?? (sorry, I lost your name/e-mail. let me know if this is your review!)

I went there w/a friend of mine, we arrived to Verona around 4:30 PM, headed immediately to the arena to pick up the tix. The square next to the arena was crowded with PJ fans, there was like people sitting around everywhere, scalpers selling tix (fuck em), folks selling t-shirts and posters and stuff… The first good thing that happened to me on this concert was that I got great tix, fifth row center. Ten club's worth the 10$. Then spent the afternoon blah blah…

When I got into the arena, it was still daylight, not even twilight, the sun was just about to go down. The arena there is a round old Roman arena. The show was all seated, and there was actually a hostess, who took us to our seats (hehe, symphonic orchestras and Pavarotti usually play at that arena). Yeah, the seats were of 'the finest quality', just like tenclub promised. Dismemberment plan started playing soon, their gig was short and they didn't seem very happy. some waiting.

When Pearl Jam appeared on the stage, it was like just getting darker, it was still day. The whole arena immediately jumped up and from that moment on noone was sitting till the end of the show. They opened with Long Road and they seemed like in a good mood and ready to play a really good show. Long road was pretty powerful, promising a hard show. Then they played Grievance, which was also more powerful then in Ljubljana. From the very beginning of the show Mike was in an extremely good mood. In Salzburg he was just standing there and playing, in Ljubljana he was like walking around a bit, but in verona he just seemed so excited, jumping around like a madman, a huge smile all over his face, running to the other side of the stage to play facing Stone, jumping a little, running back… (my friend and I couldn't agree what it was, he said Mike took some coke before the show and I said he was promised brown after the show. As i think of it now, he probably just had sex with a gorgeous Italian love-godess before the concert). The sound was more then just marvelous, those Roman guys really knew what they were doing. The sound was crystal clear and deep and powerful, adding that edge to the amazing Pearl Jam performance. Next they played Corduroy, Nothing special happened, just a great live Corduroy. Next, Hail Hail, Ed seemed a bit annoyed by that space between the stage and the front row (like 10m, quite some space), at the first refrain he jumped over his monitor and and sang it at the very edge of the stage. When he vent back, he tripped over that monitor and fell down, dropping the mic and all. It was no problem, the whole arena sang the next line, while Ed was standing up and picking up the mic. He caught up at <…we going to the same place>. Animal was good, Mike was really on fire, NAIS was ok too. Then Ed spoke to the crowd. He said like 'The last time that we played in Italy, I can't remember if it was Rome, Milan - there were two records in between, we've got some stuff to catch up on. [some silence] There's a wide space here, and we'l make it up to you, we'll fill it up with extra songs'. Then they played Pilate, quite unexpectedly, Even Flow (more powerful then on LO2L), and Given To Fly. Then Ed was fooling around a bit, singing O Sole Mio, just a couple of verses. Then he said 'This song was written in Italy with Italians' introducing MFC, hey was I jumping around like a madman, MFC was on my MUST SEE list JJ. MFC included the intro (untitled on LO2L) and they played it fast and powerful, of course Mike running around the stage all the time. And Matt realy did something good for that song too, he puled it into this fast pace. Habit was OK, Ed altered the lyrics a bit, Wishlist was easy it actually sounded like a break, that continued into Daughter, (sorry, I don't remember the tag, but it was some odd one). End of the break, next they shook the whole arena with a powerful SOLAT. Continuing the power, they played Once, that was all Mike's. His running around and jumping like doubled, he was really hot, hot, burning. Towards the end of the song he left the stage running towards the (uhmm, there was a sorta wing of the stage, quite long, like 20 meters, try to imagine it, a stage with two wings at like 30 degree angle) end of the left wing of the stage, where this fan was sitting on a wheelchair. Running he threw himself on his knees (it was spectacular) in front of her and played the whole solo for her. Then he ran back full speed, he probably had to switch his guitar effect. Next, Lukin was astonishingly fast, powerful, I mean extremely powerful, and short. At the end all lights went out, the crowd was amazed, and after some seconds of darkness purple lights went on, beginning of Immortality (another MUST SEE for me). It was like magic, thousands of lighters looked like stars, looking at the arena it seemed like the sky had extended itself into the arena, reaching towards the purple-lighted stage. Pure magic. Insignificance was a lot of power, with a little break (like in Ljubljana), the lights out and silence. It'd be much better if the crowd remained silent at that point, but it was somewhat spoiled by all the yelling. At the beginning of Rearviewmirror a fan managed to get on the stage, he just got to the center, stretched his arms wide and jumped off. That seemed to amuse Ed, he laughed instead of singing for a second. A few seconds later he said 'let him go, he's a good guy', referring to this bouncer under the stage giving the guy some hard time. The first 2/3 of the song were sorta in a swinging mude, due to that. Then at some point, all of the guys seemed like things just got serious and they have to do their best. The raw power of the song busted out of their instruments, it was almost like Lukin earlier, Matt got his solo part, it was really heavy. That was the end of the set. Lights out and I could just see some silhouettes moving on the stage. Lights went on and Ed was crawling on his hands and knees towards the mic, returning for the encore. He stood up, did some growling and said 'You make a man feel like a lion. Any Christians wanna be eaten tonight?'. Then he sang this bit, i think I have seen some lions singing it in some children's musical, the words go like "we are gonna eat 'em, in the coliseum, in the coliseum tonight". Black is pretty good, so is Breakerfall. At the beginning of Do The Evolution Ed wears this monkey mask, singing first verses while still having it on his head. Then he stuck it on his mic stand and sang the first "Admire me… admire my home…" part to it making this gesture, turning the mask towards him by it's shin, making it look as if he was serious. Hey, Ed might just as well be an actor, he did that really cool. Elderly Woman followed, and a good Better Man, a cool I Got You and Alive and Last Kiss. Then there was an extremely heavy Porch, altered a bit, but without that usual middle improv part. That closed the encore #1. Returning to the encore #2 Ed said 'we just realized we have a night off tomorrow, so we don't have to go to bed early. [some silence] I don't know, what has happened here before, i don't know the history of this place. I'm sure there was blood involved. But i'd say noone has ever played an ukulele here before, so i'll play it here. [some comments by mike, we didn't hear it] Well, I don't know if I can play it, I'll try to play it, I don't know if you can call that playing.' , leading into Soon Forget. Then the other guys attended their positions and played Yellow Ledbetter, woah, a unforgettable YL. Mike exploded again, tended to improvise throughout the song, dancing and jumping around, making it a really special song. At the end he did this solo, a very long solo. Matt left the drums, Ed and Jeff put down the mic and bas guitar and started talking and drinking wine from Ed's wine bottle, but mike was still playing. He stepped on the monitor and like didn't want to end playing. Then Stone on the other end of the stage threw something at him, so he stopped playing. They left and Ed went to both sides of the stage waving to the crowd, before he left himself.