Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly
June 28, 2006
PEARL
JAM/MY MORNING JACKET/
Continental
Airlines Arena/June 3
by Ken Shane
E.RUTHERFORD,
NJ—The archetypal
received a well deserved hero’s welcome at their two
show stand at CAA.The Saturday
show that I attended
was the final show of this leg of their current tour and
that resulted in a long, loose, fun-filled set.
Pearl
Jam is a band that produced a first album so
strong that they have lived in the shadow of that music
for the 15 years since it was released. That’s not to
say that they haven’t made great music since Ten,
they have indeed. That fact was amply illustrated as
they performed a wide range of material from
throughout their distinguished career at this
show.
The
evening opened with Eddie Vedder hitting the
stage five minutes before the concert’s scheduled
start time to perform a stirring solo acoustic version
of Bruce Springsteen’s “No Retreat, No Surrender.”
Following
that, Vedder introduced the opening band,
their first song, a beautiful version of The Band classic,
“It
Makes No Difference.”Vedder then left the stage
to MMJ and they performed a fiery set that featured
strong vocals from Jim James and a two guitar attack
that brought to mind the best of classic southern rock.
Keep
your eyes on this band and, by all means, try
to catch them the next time they play this area.
Pearl
Jam hit the stage at full throttle, opening with
the powerful triad of “Severed Hand,” “Corduroy” and
their current single, the intense “World Wide Suicide.”
It would
be nearly three hours, performing 35 songs,
before they would relinquish the stage for good.Even
a short interruption as a result of a power failure
onstage in the early part of the show did nothing to
dim the good spirits of band and audience.
In a set
of this length, there are bound to be lots of
highlights, and that was the case on this
night. I’m
still thrilled at the memory of the mournful “Gone,”
which Vedder described, by way of
introduction, as
a song he had written in a hotel room in
while trying to figure out the chords to the Springsteen
song named after that town. Other stirring moments
included “Comatose,” which followed “Gone” and
made for a powerful one-two punch, “Evenflow,”
“State
Of Love And Trust,” “Black,” “Life Wasted” and the
finale “Yellow Ledbetter.”
Sadly,
some of guitarist Mike McCready’s best
playing was either unheard or unable to fully cut
through the powerful din created by the rest of the
band.Why he chooses to use small
combo amps in
combination with a Fender Stratocaster at
times is a
mystery. Pearl Jam make brawny,
muscular music
that needs the thick, powerful sound produced by
Gibson
guitars and
he strapped on the Gibsons, it
made a big difference
in the sound. It felt like McCready
was trying to play
with finesse, and that’s admirable, but this is a band
that rocks hard and that calls for the right tools.
That
relatively minor annoyance aside, it was an
absolutely thrilling evening.The
crowd, 20,000 strong,
sang along in full voice, even on some of the more
obscure tunes. The powerful machine that is
Jam has
been going strong for 15 years now and,
based on this night, shows no sign of slowing down
anytime soon. They recently released one of their
strongest albums in years and there’s no
reason to
think that there’s anything ahead but continued success
for these heroes of rock and roll.
pearl jam
PHOTO BY
KEN SHANE