After four years (Or: Pearl Jam back in the Netherlands)

This week shall officially be dubbed as ‘Pearl Jam week’ as they had three shows in the Netherlands. Tuesday and Wednesday at the Ziggo dome and Saturday at Pinkpop, a huge outdoors festival. The last time they visited was four years ago, which I was a bit shocked by.

The first night four of us went: Marco, myself, Roger and my mother-in-law. We had fan club tickets, specifically standing tickets, which meant we could go in a half hour before everyone else. It does have the downside that you need to pick up your tickets the day of at the box office as you are required to show an ID, though.

We arrived around 2:30. Let’s just say the line for getting the tickets was over an hour and the line for merchandise was about an hour and a half… So we did some divide and conquer: Roger and Marco got the tickets, while my mother-in-law and I got the merchandise – posters. There are unique posters for each Pearl Jam concert (Marco and Roger got them all).

Tuesday’s poster | Wednesday’s poster | Saturday’s poster

Marco also picked up a new ‘Safe travels‘ keychain, to replace the one he got about ten years ago.

Advantage of the fan club tickets… I can get photos like this (faces the back of the arena).

When we entered on Tuesday we made a beeline for ‘a good place to lean’. We’re all old, what can I say. A bit less than halfway from the stage to the back, there’s a divider which separates the area right before the stage from the rest of the standing area. You can still get around it by walking around the left or right side, but it breaks up the natural tendency to push forward. And the divider has empty space in the middle, with room for security guards to stand and keep a watchful eye on the proceedings. So the picture above was taken with my back against that divider, towards the (still empty) half in the back.

During ‘Wishlist’ – lights projected on a large crystal ball in the middle. Around the line ‘I wish I was the full moon shining off a Camaro’s hood’…

You can watch Wishlist from that night on Youtube. Lyrics and more information.

A look from the back of the arena when they played “Alive”

“Alive” on Youtube; lyrics and more information.

Marco and Roger also went to the second night (with assigned seats), and then a third time to see them at Pinkpop last night.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t take another four years for them to return!