Pearl Jam now classic rockers

'90s grunge stars fresh, passionate at Pepsi Center show

Thursday, April 03, 2003 - The mosh pits have been supplanted by reserved seating. Longtime devotees are now raising families and pursuing careers. Heck, tickets are even available through Ticketmaster.
Pearl Jam remains the last band standing from the grunge glory days of the early '90s. Entering middle-age as a band, singer Eddie Vedder and his mates - guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard, bassist Jeff Ament and drummer Matt Cameron - are still going strong, soldiering on largely outside the scope of radio and MTV hype.

Nirvana made the argument for romance and brevity when Kurt Cobain left the building far too soon. Pearl Jam was in it for the long haul, taking the line of evolution and discipline, never seeming entirely happy to be the top dog of the alternative nation, a case that has a lot going for it, as the band's concert at Pepsi Center on Tuesday night showed.

It kicked off a 48-date North American tour following a month-long tour of Australia and Japan.
"We get to be thankful that we're still a band, and have that excitement of starting a new tour that's maybe going to take us someplace totally different," Gossard said before the show. "We get to go over the same old jokes that we tell every time we get together. We get to see how people grow and how their family lives change. It's all wonderful stuff."

In concert, Pearl Jam played like a band that's on solid footing to continue at a steady pace - fresh, passionate and articulate. Many in the near-capacity audience stood for the entire performance, cheering and singing along with the band's early songs. So much for waning album sales and the changing tastes of the music-buying public. Pearl Jam is a classic rock band now.

If you thought "Wishlist" was a grunge anthem, turns out it's an arena-ready power ballad replete with mirror ball. The two-hours-plus concert got off to a mellow start with the tender, melancholy "Love Boat Captain" from "Riot Act," the band's latest alum. The song carried the memory of the nine fans who died during a 2000 Pearl Jam show in Denmark. "All you need is love," Vedder crooned.

Then the Seattle rock band exploded into action with a set list that spanned its career, from the grunge era ("Even Flow" was driven by Cameron's forceful drumming and two intense solos by McCready) to introspective, wordy tunes from "Riot Act," notably "I Am Mine" and the hushed "Thumbing My Way."
A half-dozen songs into the set, Vedder finally addressed the crowd. "So here we are on the first night of our tour in Salt Lake City," he said sardonically, "... on our final tour, our farewell tour ... you might want to check the date on that."

The members of Pearl Jam are huge hoops fans, and Vedder dedicated "Better Man" to missing NBA player Bison Dele, formerly Brian Williams during his basketball career, "who was part of your town for quite a while" as a Denver Nuggets player.

A second encore of "Soon Forget" offered Vedder a chance to shine in the spotlight, just him and his ukulele. The band roared back to life with "Daughter," and at the end of "Go," McCready smashed a guitar ferociously.

Vedder couldn't recall playing "Crazy Mary" in Colorado before. Pearl Jam covered the song on "Sweet Relief," a tribute album of Victoria Williams songs. Live, it was highlighted by a blistering keyboard solo by Kenneth Gaspar, a hirsute friend of Vedder's from Hawaii. The house lights were brought up for a version of Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World," and Vedder actually smiled when he flipped a tambourine to a stage crewman.
But even though Vedder has cut his hair, he hasn't cut back on polemics. He wasn't overly garrulous during the set, but he made a few anti-war remarks.
"You got a minute for this?" he asked as he started to relate a conversation with a Gulf War helicopter pilot. Moments later, he stopped in mid-sentence. "Did somebody say "Shut up'? There's something called freedom of speech ... It doesn't feel like we've evolved at all in 20 years."
Returning to the stage for an encore, Vedder said, "In regard to what was said earlier, we support the troops." Someone tossed a glow-ring at the stage, and he flinched, then chuckled - "A Scud!"

Vedder donned a George Bush mask for "Bushleaguer," his political song from "Riot Act." Talk-singing the verses, he took a few digs at the president: "He's not a leader, he's a Texas leaguer ... Born on third, thinks he got a triple." It wasn't particularly melodious or eloquent, but he got a big hand. "We follow Ed's intuition, where he wants to go," Gossard said. "He's the leader of the band."
Official bootlegs for Pearl Jam's tour, including the Denver show, are available at www.pearljam.com and www.tenclub.net - individual two-CD sets sold for $14.98.
"If you like the show, you can get a pretty high-quality recording," Gossard said. "We spent a lot of time working out the details of how we could do it quickly. It's so easy and cheap to record now because of the digital technology that's available. Because of DL lines, we can send shows back to Seattle for mastering and then to the manufacturing plant in a 24-hour period. We have boxes of CDs a week later. It's amazing