GREAT BAND, GOOD DOC: PEARL JAM 20

My wife and I had a little Pearl Jam film festival this weekend, watching Eddie Vedder's Water On The Road concert film, and also Pearl Jam 20, the documentary about the band by Cameron Crowe. I thought Cameron, a long time fan of the band, did a good job. It was really interesting to see Eddie, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament and Mike McCready talking about their entire history. Well, almost.

I kept getting hung up on the fact that none of the band's ex-drummers were mentioned until well after an hour into the film. First, Mike mentioned "Jack," referring to Jack Irons, and a few minutes later, Mike went into an explanation of the former drummers (Irons, Dave Krusen, Dave Abbruzzese and even interim drummer Matt Chamberlin). It really bothered me that none of them were interviewed for the doc.  In contrast, in the recent Foo Fighters doc, the former members got to have their say, I felt that it hurt PJ20 that the drummers were almost an afterthought to the film (ironically, as Eddie Vedder at one point says that a drummer is a band's heart). Also, longtime keyboardist Boom Gaspar was the subject of a 5 minute extra, but there was no real explanation of why Vedder thought he should be in the band, or what the band thought of him joining.   I was also interested in hearing more about the conflict in the band, when Eddie was touring in a van trying to be a "D.I.Y." as possible while the rest of the band traveled together in a bus. Mike McCready asks "Was he embarrassed by us?"  I would have liked to have heard Eddie address that. There was definitely a time where he seemed to be chasing some weird indie-rock credibility that is kind of impossible for a band whose debut album sold ten million copies. It was obvious that it was creating tension with the rest of the band: especially as Jeff and Stone had been though so much with their former bands, Green River and Mother Love Bone.

At the core of the film is Stone's desire to run the band, and Eddie's increasing influence.  McCready insinuated that Stone wasn't totally into having Jeff in Pearl Jam, Stone admitted to thinking of it as his band until Eddie Vedder took over.  I imagine Stone calls the shots in Brad, but even in Brad, the singer Shawn Smith is kind of the main guy in the group. Stone has done a solo album - which was kind of ignored. I wonder how Stone made peace with the fact that he's better in a band, and a band needs a good frontman. Meanwhile, I would have liked to have heard more from Eddie about the importance of the other guys in the band, and how he interprets his influence in the group.

I realize that the band's manager Kelly Curtis was a co-producer, and the the goal of the film was to celebrate the band as it currently exists, not necessarily to be a comprehensive documentary, and Cameron Crowe is close with the band.  Maybe a documentary like Metallica's Some Kind Of Monster went a bit too deep and provided too much information, but I feel like PJ20 didn't go far enough.

I did enjoy the doc. I loved seeing Jeff at home in Montana, and Eddie's story about meeting Jack Irons for the first time:  Jack was playing in Joe Strummer's band, Eddie worked at the venue for a show where they met, Jack later introduced Eddie to Stone and Jeff.  While telling the story, Eddie is looking a picture of he and Strummer from that show, and he muses, "It all really comes down to this picture." Of course I loved where the band talked about Neil Young's influence on them, not just musically, but career wise.

I remember in the early days of the band, I found myself annoyed at Eddie Vedder for his indie obsession, which I felt came from (among other things) Kurt Cobain slamming the band in the press.  And while I've always loved Nirvana, Cobain's comments made me lose a bit of respect for him. It was fascinating to me that Stone admitted that Eddie's decisions sometimes didn't make sense to him at the time, and sometimes took a decade to make sense, but they were the right decisions.  And also that Cobain's comments kept the band on their "best behavior" and keeps doing so to this day.  I never thought of it that way.  Those were great moments the really added weight to the doc.

I really enjoyed that Stone talked about the fans' belief in the band keeping the band alive even when they weren't sure about themselves.  I never "moved on" from the band: I've been down since almost day one (I bought Ten the day it came out, because I loved the Temple Of The Dog album, which I bought because I was a Soundgarden fan, and to a lesser extent, Mother Love Bone). If my cheers, concert attendance, purchasing of their albums on release day, was a small part of the larger group of fans that never lost faith, I'm glad. I'm also glad that the band remain a relevant force to me to this day.  I can't wait for the next album, and yes, I'm willing to forgive the flaws in this documentary.

PEARL JAM 20: THE SOUNDTRACK

I can't wait to see the Cameron Crowe-directed Pearl Jam documentary, Pearl Jam 20. But until it comes out on DVD, I'm digging the soundtrack, which was complied by Mr. Crowe, who also wrote the liner notes.

This is really a collection for the hardcore fans, it's not for beginners (although the film may turn on some new people, from what I've heard about it).

It's mostly a collection of live performances and demos.  And considering that the band has released a live recording of every concert for the second half of their career, and released exhaustive extended editions of their first three albums, there's not a ton of stuff left that we haven't heard.  BUT!

There's still a lot of great stuff here.  Probably the highlight is their version of Mother Love Bone's "Crown Of Thorns" from their tenth anniversary show (which I have on the Pearl Jam's live recording of that concert). "Alive" from the Moore Theater in Seattle from 1990 isn't great quality sound, but it's one of their first shows, and it is worth listening to. "Black" from their legendary MTV Unplugged show is amazing (they need to release that as a CD already, although many fans - myself included - have that on an unauthorized bootleg, and the DVD came with the Ten Super Deluxe reissue). Their recent performance of "Just Breathe," accompanied by a string section, on Saturday Night Live was great (although it is very similar to the single version recorded at Austin City Limits that they've released).

My favorite parts included Temple Of The Dog's "Say Hello 2 Heaven" demo, the instrumental "Times Of Trouble" demo,  Jeff Ament's acoustic demo of "Nothing As It Seems," Matt Cameron's demo "Need To Know" (which later became "The Fixer") and most of all, their performance of Neil Young's "Walk With Me" (from Le Noise) from last year's Bridge School Benefit Concert, with Neil on guitar and vocals.

What I'm really looking forward to from Pearl Jam are their live bootlegs from their recent 20th anniversary festival.  And, of course, their next album. I'd say 20 years marks the halfway point for Pearl Jam, and there aren't many bands you can say that about.

HORRIBLE BOSSES - GREAT FILM SCORE

The new film, Horrible Bosses, has a bit of a ridiculous premise - three guys with bosses of varying degrees of horribleness, decide to team up and kill said bosses - but it's very funny, in a Hangover kind of way. But I'm writing about it because of the cool approach they took to scoring the film.  Composer Christopher Lennertz put together a really cool group of musicians to play on the score, including Mike McCready of Pearl Jam, Stefan Lessard of The Dave Matthews Band and Beastie Boys collaborator Money Mark. (Lessard and McCready are pictured here from a totally different event, I think Lessard originally posted this photo to Dave Matthews' website).  Anyway, the score is available on iTunes, and you can buy separate tracks, as there are some different musicians on different tracks (also appearing on the album is frequent Jane's Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, and a drummer named Matt Chamberlin, who has played for lots of people, including Tori Amos and Stone Gossard). You can watch a cool video about the making of film score here.

AMENT + PINNICK + STUVERUD (+McCREADY) = TRES MTS

I have been waiting for a long time for this album! For years, I'd heard that Jeff Ament from Pearl Jam and Doug Pinnick from King's X were doing some sort of project together. Well, that project is Tres Mts and it's out now.  The band also features Fastbacks drummer Richard Stuverud (who also played with Jeff in the band Three Fish and on Jeff's solo album 2008's Tone).

I think the album was recorded at Jeff's place in Montana, and a lot of it sounds like it was created out of some pretty rockin' jams. At some point, they realized that the songs needed lyrics to become songs.  A lot of it has that "jammy" sound - not in a "jam band" way, but it sounds like they were just rocking out in the studio and hammered the jams into actual songs. Mike McCready plays a lot of lead guitar on the album - Doug Pinnick plays most of the guitar on the album, but he's mainly a (great) bass player.  When it was time for some face-melting solos, Jeff knew who to call!

What does it sound like? I guess a bit like if Doug sang for Pearl Jam. It's heavy rock, it's soul, it's psychedelic.  Not much of a punk rock influence, and no indie rock pretensions.

One song that stands out is "God Told Me." The context: King's X were a Christian band when they started out. Not like Christian metal, and they weren't playing revivals or anything, but they had a Christian message in their lyrics, and they didn't have a problem with discussing it. Years later, Doug came out as a gay man, and also as an agnostic, although on this song, he seems to have come to terms with God, if not with organized religion. It's pretty heavy.

Another great one: "She's My New Song," which reminds me a bit of Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly." I had the great privilege, the great pleasure, of filming the band when they were at the SiriusXM studios recently. It meant to world to me to film a band with members of two of my favorite groups, Pearl Jam and King's X.

I dig the album, it's pretty rockin'.  I'm not putting it on a level with King's X or Pearl Jam, but it is my favorite thing Jeff has done outside of Pearl Jam since Temple Of The Dog, and it's my favorite thing Doug has done outside of King's X.  I'd love to see a full-on show live (when they played NYC, I had tickets... and then realized my cousin Bat Mitzvah - in Ohio! - was that day, oops!), and I hope they do another album. I've been using the album to run to, and it works great.  But I've also listened to it while just hanging out in the house.  Watching them perform, you wouldn't have known that they hadn't played together too much, they were really tight and knocked out three songs in like ten minutes. They seemed to work so well together, and seemed to enjoy it, so hopefully we'll hear more from them in the future.

REVIEW: PEARL JAM AT MSG 5/20 AND 5/21

People can be cynical about arena concerts, and I can understand that sentiment. Yes, there can be a big disconnect between the artist and audience, and oftentimes the thousands of fans at a large arena get herded like livestock. I get it.

But.

Some artists just figure that it's part of the deal to go along with it. You get big enough to play arenas, the lack of connection is part of what comes with the deal. But what if you got to that point because your fans felt some kind of real connection with the band (as opposed to just liking some of the band's songs). Arguably, no one has handled the problem as well as Pearl Jam (maybe Bruce Springsteen). I've seen Pearl Jam probably about 20 times since 1992 (at the Limelight!) and I've always appreciated the way they respect the fact that there are people paying to hear them perform. For a few years, they seemed to struggle with the conundrum and Eddie Vedder didn't always seem happy on stage.  I'm happy to say that it seems like he's gotten over this in the past few years.

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to see the band three times this week: once in Newark, and twice at Madison Square Garden. At one of the MSG shows, Eddie had a beam of light reflecting from his guitar into the audience. He slowly moved the guitar so that that beam of light touched every seat in the audience. It's more than just a cool looking effect, it's him acknowledging every single person in the crowd. Maybe I'm overthinking it, but it's a cool gesture.

A few numbers: they played 76 songs over three nights, with only six songs being played all three nights: "Alive," "Do The Evolution," "Lukin" (although the last night featured a very different, slower verison), "The Fixer," "Unthought Known" and "Just Breathe." Quite a few rare tracks over the past two nights, including "Sweet Lew" (Jeff Ament on lead vocals!) and "Black Red Yellow" (which I'd never heard them play before), "Hunger Strike" (with Band Of Horses' Ben Bridwell on guest vocals), and lots of cool covers: The Who's "Love Reign O'er Me" and "The Real Me," The Ramones' "I Believe In Mircales" and The MC5's "Kick Out The Jams."

But really, what it was about was this: they emptied the tank every night. They played great songs, and made it worth everyone's while (and money) to come more than once (which I'm sure many people did). They played the songs that hooked us in the first place, but their latest songs from last year's Backspacer showed that the band is as vital as ever ("The Fixer" isn't just one of my favorite songs, it's becomming my mantra!). I'm always amazed by how great they are. Yes, Eddie Vedder is one of the best frontmen in music. Mike McCready is one of the rock's great underrated lead guitarists, and his heroics prevent the band from descending into boring indie rock pretension (he happily runs around the stage, striking excellent poses with classic rock guitars: Fender Strats, Les Pauls, a flying V and even a double neck Gibson like what Jimmy Page used to use).  But the other guys hold it down.  Stone Gossard, as I mentioned, is a guy you would want in your band.  He plays every instrument, but is rarely flashy, is a riff playing monster, and really holds everything together. Jeff is a great bassist, he can play in any style. And PJ fans can thank god for Matt Cameron, the perfect drummer for the band. He also adds the occasional great song (like "You Are") and great backing vocals too.  I can't wait to see him back in Soundgarden later this year, but I hope he never leaves PJ. And of course touring Hammond player Boom Gaspar is a great part of the band also, giving them an even more timeless sound.

Night 2 at MSG was the last night of the US tour. Then, they have some European dates and then Matt is doing the Soundgarden tour. I think Stone is doing another Brad tour and album, and I guess Eddie will do solo shows.  But when Pearl Jam tours again, I'll be there. I want my moment in the spotlight again!

REVIEW: PEARL JAM 05/18/10 NEWARK

Last night I saw Pearl Jam for the first time in... well, in about a half year. What can I say, I love the band!

Pearl Jam have hit a stride in their career where they are a weird cross between The Grateful Dead and Bruce Springsteen.  Like The Dead, they can tour when they want to, with or without a new album, play any song from their catalog and have radically different shows every night. And like Bruce, they are at a point where they are so finely tuned that they empty the tank every show, are able to be spontaneous, and on any given night might be the best band in the world.

While this show wasn't as epic at the Halloween show in Philly, it was pretty awesome.  (To be fair, that show was, as mentioned, on Halloween, it was the final event at The Spectrum before it was to be torn down, and right across the parking lot was the final game of the World Series, between The New York Yankees and The Philadelphia Phillies. It really felt like the center of the earth that night).

The biggest surprise was a cover of "Jersey Girl" - that was when I took the above photo... you'll notice Stone Gossard is not playing guitar - instead he's rockin' the tambourine. I've seen Stone play bass and even drums (with Brad) but this was the first time I've seen him tap the tambourine. But there were other great moments with rare tracks: "Footsteps" was my highlight, but it was also great to hear "Alone" and "Brother." Also great (and kind of rare): "In Hiding" and "Whipping."

I was fortunate enough to have gotten fan club tickets for the show - which placed my wife and I in the eighth row, center, on the floor, the best tickets I have ever had for Pearl Jam, and some of my best tickets ever. I have tickets for two other PJ shows this week, at both shows we will be in the upper upper upper level. It was great to watch the band that way. Eddie Vedder has become a great band leader, when you're close, you can really see it.  I think that at one point, Stone resisted that, but now he seems OK with it.  I think that Stone is such a generous musician and a real team player.  I mean, playing tambourine on "Jersey Girl!" He kind of does what the song requires, even if it is just strumming an acoustic.  He lets Mike McCready take all the solos, but he and Jeff Ament are kind of the glue that holds the whole thing together. Of course I gotta mention Matt Cameron.  I look forward to seeing him later this year with Soundgarden, his style with Pearl Jam is so different.

If you've never seen Pearl Jam, you should make it your business to see a show. If you've never seen a rock and roll show (although if you haven't, you probably wouldn't be reading this blog), you should go see Pearl Jam. They really are as life-affirming as a rock and roll band could be.

I should mention the opening band, Band Of Horses. Their song "No One's Gonna Love You" was my second favorite song of 2008 (after only Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler"). They were really good, they remind me of The Band, and not just because of their colonial beards. And also My Morning Jacket. What is it with the beards! I don't know that I would pay to see Band Of Horses on their own, but they were a good opening act. Eddie joined them for a song, and frontman Ben Bridwell returned the favor by joining Pearl Jam for "All Along The Watchtower" (but he sort of was out of his weight class trying to rock out).

MIKE MCCREADY COVERS NEIL YOUNG

Found this video on YouTube thanks to the great Neil Young fansite Thrasher's Wheat. Mike McCready of Pearl Jam covering Neil's great Freedom-era song "Too Far Gone" from the Seattle Hootenanny for Haiti last month. Mike, as well as the other Pearl Jam guys, did a brief stint as Neil's backing band on his brief tour to promote Mirror Ball. But check it out: Mike's the only Pearl Jam guy never to do lead vocals (although he does sing a little bit at the beginning of their cover of "Black Diamond" by KISS) but he's a pretty good singer!

ROLLING STONES WEEK ON THE JIMMY FALLON SHOW

Musically, no late night show can come close to Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. The Roots are the best late night band ever, they can rock with Black Star and they can rock with Christopher Cross. On Monday night, Mike McCready of Pearl Jam sat in with the band (I wish they'd post some rehearsal video of that!).
And in the above video, Jimmy announced that the week of May 10th is going to be Exile On Main Street week on his show, where every night a different artist will cover a song from the album (which is being reissued on May 18). That should be pretty cool.

BEST OF THE 00s: PEARL JAM

Pearl Jam was one of the dominant band, if not the dominant band, of the '90s. It was their awkward childhood and adolescence as a band. And they probably produced their best music during that era: Ten, Vs.,Vitalogy and No Code. (I felt that Yield was a great album, but it saw them slipping.)

But in the '00s, they've put out a lot of great music which doesn't get its due. 2000's Binaural, produced by Tchad Blake, is probably their most underrated album. The single, "Nothing As It Seems," is a really cool song, but a willfully uncommercial pick for first single. There were some great garage rock gems there: "Breakerfall," "God's Dice" and "Evacuation." "Thin Air" is one of their sweetest songs (and was included on our wedding compilation) - I always felt that Al Green or Solomon Burke or even Willie Nelson could do a great cover. 

2002's Riot Act was kind of their mid-life crisis. Musically, it had a bit too much of an obsession (I felt) with indie rock. It was like a guy who works hard to stay in shape, but he starts slouching to appeal to indie rock fans.  It's not convincing and also unecessary.  It's interesting to me that they get so much respect from the indie rock world these days. Anyway, the album is, in my opinion, their weakest, but features two of their best songs, "I Am Mine" and "Love Boat Captain."

In 2003, they released a lovely song, "Man Of The Hour," for an equally lovely film, Tim Burton's Big Fish. That year also saw the release of Lost Dogs, a 2 CD set of non-album tracks.  The following year, they put out rearviewmirror, a 2 CD set of "greatest hits" (I had the privlege to write the record label's bio for that album). And, with that, they moved into the world of being actually independent.

On 2006's Pearl Jam, I felt that they wanted to be a "big" band again. Riot Act had a song called "Bu$hleaguer" - but it was so boring, that it didn't make much of a protest song. Even people who wanted to get behind it, couldn't.  I think they started taking cues from (maybe) The Clash and Bruce Springsteen - artists who had big messages, and wrote music appropriately so that it would reach big audiences. It was a great album, with "Life Wasted," "World Wide Suicide," "Unemployable," "Severed Hand" giving them some new anthems.  "Come Back" is maybe their sweetest song ever, if I produced Solomon Burke, I would suggest that he cover this one. I feel like that song could be a huge hit in the right hands.

Last year's Backspacer is a great album, it saw them reunite with Vs. and Vitalogy producer Brendan O'Brien.  The first single, "The Fixer," provided me with a mantra of sorts, and could be the unofficial slogan of No Expiration: "If something's old, I wanna put a little shine on it. When something's gone, I wanna fight to get it back again." "Gonna See My Friend" and "Supersonic" are great rockers as well, and "Just Breathe" is another wonderful ballad.

I also have to mention Eddie Vedder's work outside of the band: his solo debut, 2007's Into The Wild soundtrack, is classic. He's also collaborated with the Supersuckers, Neil Finn, Cat Power and former Pearl Jam drummer Jack Irons. He is creating his own solo repertoire, and hopefully he feels comfortable balancing his own career with the band. Stone Gossard has done some solo stuff and some guest appearances outside of the band.  His other group, Brad, released one album - I wish they were more active. Jeff Ament released his first solo album, and reuinted with his pre-Green River hardcore band, Derranged Diction (and Stone and Jeff did a few Green River reunion things). Mike McCready did a few things with his other band The Rockfords and did some guest appearances.  Matt Cameron meanwhile did a few albums with his garage rock band Wellwater Conspiracy, an album with his jazz band Harrybu McCage and a few other things. He really did come into his own as Pearl Jam's drummer in the '00s.

But the real reason that I am including Pearl Jam in my Best of the '00s is because they really created their own path during the '00s.  Not worrying about having huge hit records (but, finally, not shying away from the possibility of doing so), and taking advantage of their position: they don't need to deal with record labels anymore. They've always been a really popular touring act, and the group they get compared to often is The Grateful Dead. (Not musicially, just the fact that they can play huge venues without radio or press).  Since 2000, they've been releasing live albums ("bootlegs") of every concert that they play (for the most part) and they offer them at fair prices. Speaking of their live shows, they are always mind-blowingly great. They have also just started to dip into their archives: in 2006, they released New Year's Eve 1992, a concert recorded while they were just blowing up at New York's Academy (they were actually opening for Keith Richards & The X-Pensive Winos, my wife was at that show). And last year they put out a pretty amazing super-deluxe reissue of Ten (in a number of different versions, I got the big kahuna).

I think that, like The Dead, Pearl Jam will be a huge touring act for decades to come. But unlike The Dead, I bet they will still be making vital relevant music.

PEARL JAM CLOSES THE SPECTRUM

People overuse the word "epic," but last night's Pearl Jam Halloween/last-concert-at-the-Philly-Spectrum truly was one for the ages. The above clip (not my video, I wasn't sitting that close to the stage) was from the first encore, when the band came out dressed as Devo and covered "Whip It." It was pretty classic. (Devo apparently approved: a video with a different angle from the above one, is posted at their website. On another note, this gave me a great idea for my halloween costume for next year: Devo actually sell these outfits).

I'd have to check on this, but I think it may have been their longest show ever. It was certainly one of them - I'm sure the live album will be three CDs. (all of Pearl Jam's concerts are available as live downloads or CDs through the band's website) Like Bruce Springseen 's recent concert closing down Giants Stadium, there were crazy rumors of who would show up... and like that show, there were no guests. Which is fine: they played over three hours, that's more than enough, who cares about guests (although Eddie Vedder did sing a song with opening band, Bad Religion, who were great). Eddie addressed this towards the beginning of the show, mentioning that he had heard rumors that Bruce, Neil Young, Billy Joel, Dave Matthews and Jon Bon Jovi were going to be there, and he said that, in fact, there would be no guests.

Instead, we got performances of some songs that had never, or rarely ever, been performed by the band. That included "Pilate," from Yield, "Out Of My Mind," which was the b-side of "Not For You" and which wasn't even included on the b-sides collection, Lost Dogs. Eddie explained that a fan offered a large sum of money to a worthy cause if they played it - it was only the third time they ever performed it.

Eddie strapped on a button accordion for the first ever performance of Vitalogy's "Bugs," which was better than the studio version. There was also the first ever performance of "Sweet Lew," featuring Jeff Ament on lead vocals, Eddie on backing vocals and dribbling a basketball, and Stone Gossard on bass. Stone also played bass on one of my favorites, "Smile," which featured Jeff on lead guitar. Plus there were some other rarely played songs that I love, such as "I Got ID" and the Mother Love Bone song "Crown Of Thorns."

But the show wasn't just for aficionados: they also played some of their biggest songs, including "Evenflow," "Alive," "Yellow Ledbetter," "Better Man" and "Daughter." As well as a bunch of songs from their very solid new album, including one of my favorites, "The Fixer," along with "Just Breathe" (which featured a string section) and "Got Some." I've been seeing the band for seventeen years, I've very rarely been disappointed, but this was one of the best shows I've ever seen by them. They seem like they are at the top of their game, and I hope they tour some more in 2010, I'll definitely go to see them again.

9/11 MUSIC PART 1 - AMERICA: A TRIBUTE TO HEROES

On one hand, what can music do when the entire country is simultaneously mourning and in shock? On the other - in my opinion, and in that of many others - music helps people to heal in a small way.

The America: A Tribute To Heroes telethon took place on 9/21, just ten days after 9/11. I remember being totally moved, and in the back of mind a bit impressed with the networks. I thought they did a great job of being classy, not cheesy, not embarrassing, and clearly dropped the usual business and commerical concerns.

I listen to the album once a year - around 9/11 obviously. I remember seeing Bruce Springsteen open the show with "My City Of Ruins." At my job at VH1, we actually had footage of him performing it a week or so earlier at a fair in Asbury Park. It was about Asbury Park, but obviously it really worked for the awful situation the country was in. Most people thought he wrote it after 9/11, which goes to show how good of a writer Bruce is. Stevie Wonder along with the vocal group Take 6 did a great version of his underrated classic "Love's In Need Of Love Today" from Songs In The Key Of Life. Alicia Keys did a solo piano reading of Donny Hathaway 's "Someday We'll All Be Free." It was oddly joyous: she was partially mourning, but also looking toward a better future. Dave Matthews did a solo version of his "Everyday," a hit single at the time that also worked perfectly. The Dixie Chicks did a really moving version of "I Believe In Love," which I don't think they'd released yet. Sting did a very apropos "Fragile" and U2 did their best ever version of their instant-classic "Walk On." Sheryl Crow sang my personal favorite song of hers "Safe And Sound" (originally about an ex-boyfriend, it still seemed to fit the situation), Neil Young had one of his finest moments with his cover of John Lennon's "Imagine" (a song that Clear Channel supposedly "banned" from its radio stations post 9/11) and Neil also backed Eddie Vedder and Mike McCready on "Long Road."

For that night, it helped make the events of 9/11 a bit easier to process somehow. Willie Nelson ended the night leading a number of artists (including Mariah Carey) through a ragged version of "America The Beautiful," which made me feel patriotic and like it was time to start trying to move on.

PEARL JAM PART 1: 06/24/08 MSG

I'm a bit behind on my concert reporting: the last two nights I went to see Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden. Both shows ended at about 11:30 pm ET and I got home closer to 1 am.


Both shows were incredible: at the first show, we had tickets behind the stage, but they were in the 4th row, so it was actually pretty great. My lovely wife took some pretty cool pictures. The picture on the left is of course Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, and the other one is Mike McCready playing a face melting solo during "Evenflow" -- all behind his head, Hendrix-style. No disrespect to drummer Matt Cameron or keyboardist Boom Gaspar - we didn't have a great sight line to them from our seats .


They opened with a pretty rare song: "Hard To Imagine." Right there you knew it was going to be a pretty special show, it usually is when they open with something so unusual. Four songs in, they did something really unusual: they added three backing singers. One of them, Fonzi Thornton, was a guy who I knew of: he sings backup for Aretha Franklin, and has worked with tons of other people, like Luther Vandross, Chic, Debbie Harry and Mick Jagger to name just a few. I'm dying to know how Pearl Jam met up with these guys. Actually two guys and a girl. Anyway, they did a song I'd never heard before, "All Night," which was pretty cool. Later on, they returned for "Who You Are" and "W.M.A."


Another cool guest was C.J. Ramone, who joined for a cover of The Ramones' "I Believe In Miracles." But the show wasn't about guests, and Pearl Jam rocked for about 2 1/2 hours: other highlights were "Down" (a b-side), "Unemployable," "Whipping," "Present Tense," "Do The Evolution," The Who's "Love Reign O'er Me," "Spin The Black Circle," Eddie's solo performance of "No More," Victoria Williams' "Crazy Mary," "Present Tense," Bob Dylan's "All Along The Watchtower," and the closer, "Indifference." But the show was like one long highlight. Eddie was in great spirits, and so was the rest of the band.


MSG was totally sold out, and the rafters literally shook several times during the concert. I do think Pearl Jam are well on their way to Grateful Dead/Springsteen type status: where they can tour whenever they want, whether or not they have an album, and sell out multiple nights. And not have to rely on any hits. There is no song that they "have to" play every night. Which is pretty extrodinary.


A few years ago, Eddie Vedder seemed frustrated by being in such a big band. He seemed to resent the songs from Ten, and just didn't seem to be enjoying himself. I think he's grown up a bit, and seen almost all of his early '90s peers struggling to keep their audiences. Pearl Jam still play by their own rules thanks to the loyalty of the fans, and he seems to appreciate it now.

So, to summarize, great show. But the following night was even better. I'll write about that one, and post more of Maria's pictures, tomorrow.