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Pearl Jam the real deal
Brawny rockers fill ACC twice
Their music sized for stadium play[/url]
Front man Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam unleashes his mighty bellow at the Air Canada Centre on Tuesday night.
Pearl Jam on the "comeback" trail?
Not really. If we were to gauge the Seattle grunge warriors' popularity over the past 15 years solely by record sales, radio presence and critical notices, then it might appear that the recent surge in attention being paid to the band and its eponymous eighth album mark a renewal of public interest in its work.
For the doting fans who've packed arenas and amphitheatres to the tune of around 20,000 ticket holders a night on each tour since 1991's classic, 12-million-selling Ten made the group superstars, Eddie Vedder and Co. have never gone anywhere.
Let's not forget, too, that while the band's scattered and rather inconsistent output for each album since 1994's Vitalogy has pushed it further and further to the edge of the mainstream radar, there have been plenty of others willing to step in and mimic to great success Pearl Jam's brawny, slightly eccentric breed of classicist stadium rock, not to mention plenty of hirsute singers willing to assume Vedder's signature baritone. As a friend of mine who heads a local music-publishing firm once observed while discussing the stubborn popularity of these sham Jams of the Nickelback/Creed persuasion: Pearl Jam created its own genre.
The original template is, of course, still the most striking, which explains why Pearl Jam sold out the Air Canada Centre for two nights this week and why, with the exception of Nickelback, most adherents from Days of the New to Staind are now merely unpleasant memories to be dredged up on some future Rhino Records compilation.
And, really, Pearl Jam is lucky to have the following it does. Throughout Tuesday night's febrile gig at the ACC, one was struck by just how much the band's songs demand to be heard in a venue this size, where, at the appropriate moments, Vedder's mighty bellow can be borne aloft on several thousand amateur approximations. Pearl Jam has always been a live band rather than a studio act, but cathartic epics like "Alive" and "Jeremy" were far too big for a club to contain, long before the Lollapalooza era turned them into modern-rock standards.
Tuesday night's show came just three dates into the group's latest tour, which supports the recent release of Pearl Jam, but there didn't appear to be any cobwebs in need of shaking out.
Obviously, it helps that Pearl Jam has barely taken a break from touring since it formed from the ashes of Mother Love Bone and Green River in 1990. Yet the band is also riding high on its rawest and most rocking album in years, and the go-for-the-throat focus that audibly infused the recording — and that was so sorely lacking on 2000's Binaural and 2002's Riot Act — carried over into hungry attacks on the raging anti-war rant "World Wide Suicide" and "Life Wasted."
Guitarist Mike McCready's "Inside Job" was a little rockier, its patient arrangement not yet carrying the climactic heft of a cousin like "Present Tense," but Vedder excused the flaws by admitting that it was the first time the band had tried it out onstage.
The dreary new blues grind "Come Back," however, still came off as clunky and derivative in performance and began emptying seats only three songs into what should have been an epic encore.
In testament to the great sway Pearl Jam holds over its crowd, the set list connected without often resorting to easy marks. "Why Go?" was never a single, but it went down as forcefully as a fondly remembered softie like "Daughter" or the grimly majestic version of "Jeremy" that unfurled during the encore. Likewise, Vitalogy's underrated "Not For You" rode McCready and Stone Gossard's slashing Stones/Stooges riffery, and the relaxed chug laid down by bassist Jeff Ament and drummer Matt Cameron to a subtly explosive peak.
Who needs albums when they can't do your powers justice, anyway?
par Olikatie » Jeu Mai 11, 2006 7:56 am 
Jeremy est né le 28.04.06 et Fanny le 17.07.09 
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