Pearl Jam rocks Schnitz
The Seattle band moves past its grunge roots to prove its staying power while helping the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America
It's time to rip the old, tattered label off Pearl Jam.
Anyone following the Seattle band's resurrection has surely seen the ubiquitous tag, showing up in a Rolling Stone cover story and countless reviews this year: "The last grunge band standing."
Clever. And perhaps the last time Pearl Jam stopped in Portland, performing at a less-than-full Rose Garden show in 2000, it fit.
But given the band's tremendous 2 hour, 35-minute set Thursday night at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, that description seems pedestrian and, frankly, disrespectful.
The Pearl Jam that played before a sold-out, 2,800-capacity crowd at the Schnitz hardly seemed to be clinging to the flannel shirts, Doc Martens and loud, muddy riffage of a faded genre. Rather, the band showed it should be measured against rock's greatest acts.
Certainly, the 25-song set -- teetering thrillingly from anthemic chart-toppers such as "Even Flow" to the reflective singalong "Love Boat Captain" to the raucous yet compact anti-Iraq War rocker "World Wide Suicide" -- proved that, at this moment, Pearl Jam is as good as a live rock act gets.
That said, singer-lyricist Eddie Vedder still talks like the 16-year-old group is just stumbling out of a West Seattle basement again.
Scanning the packed and muggy theater from under his curly locks, the gas-station-attendant-turned-rock-icon hoisted a bottle of wine and mumbled, "Thanks for giving us a place to play tonight."
Actually, Pearl Jam -- Vedder, guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament and drummer Matt Cameron -- had one thing in common with most beginner bands: They played for free.
The show was a benefit for the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America. Some fans paid as much as $1,500 for choice seats sold by the foundation's Northwest chapter.
