Plaid shirt? Check.
Hate on for Ticketmaster? Check.
Yup, ready to see Pearl Jam.
It’s been 20 years since Ten was released and I was feeling a bit nostalgic, but I didn’t want the show to be a nostalgia trip. I just wanted to Rock Out in the here and now.
It was hard, though, not going back to the 90’s — angst, aggression and apathy. The whole concert for me was a mix of feeling very connected to that 90’s stuff (I am a Gen X’er) and very removed from it (I’m 43). It was easy feeling the rage in ‘Jeremy’ and ‘Corduroy,’ screaming along with everyone else. Damn it feels good to scream amongst thousands. And then they played ‘State of Love and Trust,’ which used to take me instantly to a violent and angry place, but I was now somehow removed from Vedder’s screaming and pleading and had difficulty connecting with his energy. Like I said I’m 43 — I only have so much angst and aggression…or maybe that just says a lot about me because the band had no lack of it. They were near the start of their tour in Toronto and they were fired up — Eddie was always close to his bottles of red wine.
Stone Gossard’s family was in the house and during an extended ‘Even Flow’ jam Gossard filled his solo with reckless aggression and emotion. It felt like he was pushing the guitar further than it could go — but it still went there. I kept thinking that if his guitar just split apart after the solo I wouldn’t be surprised, maybe even a little relieved. It was a great ride and the crowd responded with amped-up enthusiasm.
Eddie dedicated ‘Wishlist’ to Doug Gilmour and I thought to myself “nice one Dougie”. I smiled as I thought of Dougie rocking out to Pearl Jam and how fucking amazing he was in the ‘93 playoffs and how good it felt to believe in the Leafs.
Eddie talked about how NYC stood for Neil Young Country and the crowd went nuts — like I said, it’s so good to scream with thousands of people — especially in praise of Neil.
And that was the night for me: sometimes screaming, sometimes feeling far away from the 90’s and the way I felt then, and sometimes thinking about hockey. I will give the concert a 7, and the band a Ten.
Let Them Eat Vinyl 
September 14th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Great to hear Seattle rockers still have angst (can’t say the same for Soungarden…) the last time a saw PJ was 19yrs ago at the concert hall in Toronto (now MTV I think) back when I still had the anger and fitness to keep up with Eddie and crew , I must have lost ’10’lbs stage diving and crowd surfing and topped the concert off with a nice chat (and beer) with Eddie and Stone in a cubevan; thinking holy shit, these guys are going to be BIG!
How was Mudhoney?
cheers
September 14th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
WHAT!!!!!! SHUT UP YOU DID NOT HANG OUT WITH EDDIE & STONE. I am SOOOOOOOOO jealous!!!!! I can’t believe I’ve never heard this story. We must discuss further next time I see you!
September 14th, 2011 at 5:04 pm
i remember you going that show. i wasn’t keen on Pearl Jam yet. You came home soaked, bruised and we talked forever about the show. Then it started to sink in and it just kept getting better- VS., Vitalogy- Yield.
missed the opener as usual- too buzy preparing for the show. did get a chance to see Mudhoney they came out and played “Kick out the Jams”.
Nice
September 15th, 2011 at 9:45 am
I wasn’t that keen on them either but I trained hard for a month prior to the show and got hooked!!
September 15th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Training – I Gota do a post about that
September 16th, 2011 at 4:23 pm
yup!