Pearl Jam directs its riot to Mexico (Pearl Jam dirige su motin a Mexico)

Traduction:

"For the first time in Mexico. 17, 18 and 19 of July, Palace of Sports, City of Mexico."

If, I feel it, already I know. That was only one cheap and shameless way to catch its attention. The truth is that the first time that Pearl Jam touched in Mexican territory was right here in Tijuana, Baja California, in the spring of 1992 in a mythical called place "Iguanás", located to little meters of the Sentry box the International of San Ysidro. Nevertheless, the event in himself has become an urban legend for the new tijuanense generation. Speaking ace to child of the nineties.

Nobody knows how long lasted the touched one, nor what songs were touched, nor how many tacos with Chile Mike McCready ate that, according to they say, made touch it like maniaco that night. Even, the exact date of the event is a debate question. Some say that it was in April, others say that it was in May; but I am too loose to find out it. (Publisher: He was the 10 of May of 1992, I I was ahi '.) But in fact he is not stranger who a so significant event for the history of the popular culture in Tijuana has remained in the forgetfulness. Half of the inhabitants (or citizens, you choose) of Tijuana at the present time did not live here eleven years ago, and most of the people who were present in the event, or was foreign, or was too many "marijuana users" to remember it. (Publisher: Hey) Please forgive our hometown in our insignificance. Even, I did not know that they had come until several years later. In the 92 I was fifteen years old, so anyway she had not been able to enter the Iguanás. But I am sure that it had done all the possible one to enter or at least to listen what could of the touched one from outside. I say, fan is fan, independently of which hairs have brought forth him or no. (Publisher: You are only one simple creature). What I mean is that Pearl Jam continues being my favorite band of all the times, but that time was the height and I tried to obtain all his material that was available: unpublished songs, recordings of concerts, interviews, which is. Although one was only a recording of Ed Vedder reading the names of the directory, I I had acquired it...

No, they hope... That last one is a little ill... (Publisher: In the short while return). Olvídenlo. The point is that I was united to the euphoria like all the others. If I had known then what I know now.

But it is yesterday yesterday, and now it is now. And for many now it is an unacceptable case. And for many the Pearl Jam of now is a something unacceptable. Only because instead of being a band of simple, it took another direction and one became a band of whole albums, since they have made it all the great bands of rock. It's evolution, baby! In his first three discs, Ten (1991), versus. (1993), and Vitalogy (1994), Pearl Jam began like the vocalista that write the songs and the band that accompanies it. But in their following discs, nonCode (1996), Yield (1998), and Binaural (2000), began to show a different dynamics in the creative process: each member of the band began to contribute songs to the projects. Now, the band integrated by Ed Vedder (voice, guitar, and sometimes ukelele), Mike McCready (guitar), Stone Gossard (guitar), Jeff Ament (under), Matt Cameron (battery), and its new member not-official, the tecladista Kenneth "Boom" Gaspar, has become a collective musical organ. Its new album Riot Act (2002), is a collection of songs with much more ample a musical and emotional scale that the previous discs. From the melancholic "Love Boat Captain" and the introspectiva "I a.m. Mines", to intrinsically the roquera "Save You" and the fantasy of effects of guitar "You Are", that is listened to like something similar to The Smiths or The Cure.

And although Pearl Jam is mainly music, their partner-political opinions and activities also have matured and the band has taken advantage of the rock like forum freedom of expression. Its battle against Ticketmaster in the middle of the ninety was very well-known. Also its collaborations with environmentalist organizations, like Surfrider Foundation, and feministas, like for Voters Choice. Less well-known, but following the same line, is that they were hosts of two improvised programs of radio, Self Pollution Radio (1995) and Monkey Wrench Radio (1998), that was transmitted via satellite from more important Seattle, where invited Pearl Jam and offered almost four hours of music and social and political commentaries about subjects, and things that they did not have to do that subject yet about the penis of then president Clinton. First of these programs it began with Ed saying, "we have to politicians acting as stars of rock, and to stars of rock acting like... good, the rock stars always are going to be rock stars... but, to the chingada one with rock stars... tonight we have musicians here ". In the 2001, Pearl Jam made an exclusive publication for its club of fans titled Manual for Free Living, as answer to the bombing in Afghanistan after the attacks of the 11 of September, in which authors like Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, Howard Zinn, and Michael Moore, expressed their ideas about the freedom.

Even, Riot Act contains a song that in its live presentations has caused you criticize of the patrioteros circles in the United States, and applause in Australia and Japan. The song "Bu$hleaguer", is a strong and humoristic critic to George "Dubbya" Bush, the same "King of the Hill", "Friend of Fox", that says "to nuckular" instead of "nuclear", and which with untied to the Gulf War Episode II I to rather be an animal. The song begins with Ed hablando/cantando as if it finished reading in the newspaper the last adventure of Bush and its cabinet: "How it does to him? How they do to him? Amazing and immutable ". Later it says, "He he is not a leader, it is a suitcase of the tejana league". And "change" finishes to the song pronouncing the word repeatedly.

Then, the magnificent Country Emperor of the World it leaves one of the most honest bands, with social conscience, and activists who I have known. And for these reasons, always I have wondered themselves how it will be an interpretation of Pearl Jam in Mexico, a country that criticizes so much to the United States when it has it of backs, but that to him the Publisher licks (: It already arrives '.) hand when it has it front.

And now, more than ten years after to have visited our country, they in the last decided moment for adding to its tour of North America three presentations in the Palace of the Bounces of the City of Mexico. (the third date negotiated when the tickets for the first two days were exhausted in less than eight hours.) Sure I am not going to be able to go to those concerts, (although if I am going them to be able to listen later, because all the recordings of the tour will be available in CD) but have had the opportunity to see the band touch four times in California live. And what I can say to them of a concert of Pearl Jam it is that it is of simplest. Only five vatos are touching good music. It is not the same spectacle in each presentation, the extensive musical catalogue of the band simply does not allow it. Either nothing of laser beamses, neither monas inflatable as large as a building, nor blood, nor maquillaje, nor giant choreographies of dance, nor screens (at least of which they are property of the facilities.) Which has sense, because fans of Pearl Jam we are going to the concerts to hear music, not to see tele.

It is not necessary to have I stimulate visual exaggerated to enjoy the concert and to feel music and to find that importance where the band and the public become one. To which I am trying to arrive is that, it is going to be very interesting to see how an event so intimate, visceral, and cathartic will be developed, as it is it a concert of Pearl Jam, in one of the centers of greater spectacles of the Universe.

So, what has of bad that the Pearl Jam of now is not a band of prizes, and carried of magazine, and of presentations in variety programs where the singing products (and not-singers) can interpret new the simple one extracted of the disc more recent than they are padroteando? Still they continue filling concerts, still they have things what to say, and not yet surrenders to the musical complacencias that characterize to the bands of long race. Makes much dwells sense to live in the present tightens. Now it is now, and it is yesterday yesterday. And many detest now by how it is. And those that hate now, they sing and they sing the morning, and cry and cry yesterday. But Pearl Jam does not live frightened on now. Because it knew to assume his yesterday. If there am only knew now what there am knew then.