Pearl Jam brings back early ’90s

There were several memorable moments during Friday’s Pearl Jam concert, but one sticks out.

At the end of the first encore, lead singer Eddie Vedder modified the lyrics of his song Alive and pointed to a few fans in the audience and belted, “Oooo, you’re still alive. You’re still alive!”

It was a fine gesture to Thunder Bay residents who may have suffered layoffs in the pulp and paper industry of late. And like the Allan Cup victory earlier this year, it gave people a positive vibe. The crowd roared after the song ended.

Pearl Jam, a band with a social conscience, put on a very good show Friday and used every weapon in their arsenal, including a simple, effective spotlight system to introduce themselves.

They also gave the audience, most of them from Generations X and Y, what they wanted: songs from their early albums. They played Black, Even Flow, Jeremy, Nothing Man and Animal.

The volume at the concert was just about right. They were loud, but not too loud, like a Smashing Pumpkins concert I went to in Edmonton several years ago that was painful. (You know you’ve hit 30 when you start talking about volume levels and damage to your hearing.)

By the third song, Vedder had the crowd in his back pocket. When he started clapping, nearly everyone in the stands and on the floor at Fort William Gardens was clapping along with him. Vedder looked comfortable on stage, casually sipping from a water bottle like he was in his kitchen.

Another reporter told me he saw Pearl Jam in Minneapolis a few years ago and believed Friday’s Thunder Bay show was better because they played more of their old stuff.

I agree. I was most impressed when they played songs from their first two albums, Ten and Vs. Vedder got the crowd blaring the lyrics of Animal back to him. And the best guitar moment of the night was Even Flow, when the bassist played a steady, rat-a-tat-tat solo that lasted a few minutes. It was impressive and showed that Pearl Jam isn’t just The Eddie Vedder Show.

Vedder, who comes across in magazine interviews as Mr. Serious, even displayed a bit of humour. He said the Gardens was a hot stadium to play in and added, “How the (expletive) do you play hockey in here?”

He even cracked a joke about losing his hearing. “I can (expletive) like a rabbit, but I can’t hear a thing,” he said.

The band didn’t do any crowd surfing like they did in the 1990s. Thank goodness. Those thirty- and forty-somethings might have broken a hip! ha. Instead, Vedder walked among the people in the stands sitting directly behind the stage. I’ve never seen the lead singer of a major rock ‘n’ roll band do that. It was a nice touch, very Gordie Howe-ish.

Pearl Jam is a good band, but for the life of me I still don’t understand what some of their lyrics are trying to communicate. I wish their songs were more straightforward, like when Vedder sat in the crowd and sang, “Oh where oh where could my baby be, the Lord took her away from me,” at the west end of the Gardens.

The concert was very good, but it left me wanting more. Pearl Jam is a band that is politically aware. And, unlike many others, they have the ability to shape the way people think. (Any band that lists Errol Morris’s documentary The Fog of War on their website must have brains.)

But where are their political songs? Creedence Clearwater Revival and other bands wrote straightforward songs about the Vietnam War.

Why can’t Pearl Jam do the same?

They showed they can do basic rock ‘n’ roll. At the end of the show, they and the Supersuckers did a rockin’ version of Neil Young’s Rockin’ in the Free World. It was inspiring. Wouldn’t it be great if Vedder and Co. could write and perform snappy anti-Iraq War and anti-George W. Bush songs?

Then they would be even more impressive.