)Washington DC (2006-05-30)
Pre-listening comment: Assuming it happens, I will NOT let the playing of “Comatose” during the encore or the playing of “Unemployable” at any point during the show influence my rating.
Just like the previous show in Camden, this show gets off to a fantastic start with “Release,” “WWS,” “Severed Hand,” “Corduroy,” “Animal,” “Do the Evolution,” and “Given to Fly.” I really enjoyed this seven-song run – they performed all of them really well.
As expected, things slow down (maybe too much) with “Lowlight” – a song that is getting a little too much attention on this tour. They follow it up with two political/social-commentary songs, “Unemployable” and “Grievance.” It’s odd that I really liked “Grievance” a while back but, for whatever reason, it’s starting to lose some of its appeal.
“Even Flow” gets things back on track (although I think they need to move it around the setlist more), followed by “I Got Shit” and “Present Tense.” There are a lot of similarities between the structure of the Camden 2 and DC setlists but I think this one has better songs – at least the two that followed EV (“Wishlist” and “You Are” were played in Camden – “I Got Shit” and “Present Tense,” imho, are better than both of them).
PJ don’t mess around with their songs very much but they attempt an new intro to “Better Man” with Boom playing the piano. It doesn’t really work for me until be starting holding some organ chords and then EV “usual” guitar strumming kicks in. I think it has potential but needs some work. The lack of a “don’t run away...run away...run away...” ending is disappointing. I don’t think we’ve heard it on this tour aside from the one, somewhat separate “Save it for Later” performance back in Chicago.
“Inside Job” is next and is, as usual, very good. They keep things new by playing the “Wasted”-combo, as it should be. Admittedly, I may have been “conditioned” to preferring these two songs together sue to listening to other, more recent shows.
Two strong songs close the main set, “Why Go” (sounds great) and “RVM” which, to me is flawless until (and I only caught it because he drops an f-bomb because of it) EV can’t hold the note near the end of the song.
Since they’ve already played “Wasted Reprise” they are able to make a clean start to the first encore and begin with “Man of the Hour,” which sounds quite nice. Being in DC you have to expect another dose of anti-Republican music and the get right to it with Dylan’s “Masters of War.” They do a nice job with the song but you know how I feel about them sacrificing one of their own songs for a cover of someone else’s.
“From a big town to a small one,” the band plays “Elderly Woman...” much to the delight of the fans. “Come Back” is next (play it earlier) and “Alive,” which has yet to miss a show on this 2006 tour.
Encore 2 is relatively short, opening with “Comatose” (not allowed to let this affect my rating), “Leash” (wow, they’ve found new love for it!), “Fuckin’ Up” (requested by Dick Cheney, according to EV), and finally, you guessed it, “Yellow Ledbetter” (with the “Star Spangled Banner” tag.)
Highlights: For the second night in a row, the first seven songs, I Got Shit, Present Tense, and RVM
Rating: Four stars
