Last Night: Pearl Jam Take On Kanye, Susan Hutchison, and The Fixer at KeyArena

Laura Musselman

Watch a slideshow of Pearl Jam at KeyArena on Monday, September 21.

Who: Pearl Jam, with Ben Harper and the Relentless 7
Where: KeyArena
When: Monday, September 21
A Brief Note About the Opener: The last time I saw Ben Harper at KeyArena he brought his own throne. Tonight he sat in a folding chair. His set was equally disappointing.
More Pearl Jam: The band plays again tonight at KeyArena, and Saturday at Clark County Amphitheater. As of right now, Ticketmaster still has tickets for both shows.

Here are a few of my notes from the show:

Lights Dim: Band takes the stage.

Crowd: Roaring applause that would put a jet engine to shame. Seeing Pearl Jam at the KeyArena is being in a room with thousands of fans singing and hugging along to their favorite songs. It is a life-affirming, irony-free experience.

"Daughter" (several songs in): Jeff Ament played acoustic, upright bass while the rest of the band played their electric instruments as if they were dainty, antique acoustics. It was a rather quick, soulless rendition, unfortunately.

"Even Flow:" Eddie Vedder's cigarette and bottle of wine stole the spotlight from Mike McCready and his mediocre guitar solo. It was actually rather painful to watch McCready react to every note he hit and expect you to play along throughout the evening. It was kind of exhausting, actually.

Eddie Vedder Throws Down Some Twitter Catnip: "We, too, think Kanye West is a jackass."

Crowd: Thunderous applause.

Backspacer's "Amongst the Waves," was completely transformed live. On record -- like the rest of the album's songs, I must say -- it feels a bit stale, and over-refined. Last night it was as sweeping and epic as anything else they threw down.

Vedder, before playing "The Fixer," the first single on the band's Sunday release, Backspacer: "You wanna know what I did yesterday? I went down to Target and bought our record on vinyl. Now if we can just get them to sell record players, it's all gonna be good."

People like to compare Pearl Jam to the Grateful Dead, because they are both such prolific live acts. But there's another, more obvious comparison: Both bands are teams of total dorks that make spectacular pop music. Am I the only one who walked away from tonight's show convinced that Stone Gossard is Phil Lesh's doppelganger?

Pearl Jam shows should have an intermission. They played for more than two hours last night with two encores. There's no mystery that there will be a pair of encores. And I'd rather see the show broken in half to give the band the opportunity to have two openers and closers, and for the crowd to go buy a $40 concert poster.

Eddie Vedder bounces around the stage like a boxer. That is to say, if boxers smoked and drank on the clock.

For Backspacer's "Just Breathe," PJ brought in an inaudible string section that featured drummer Matt Cameron's wife, April Cameron, on viola. It's amazing to think that 10 years after taking the Pearl Jam gig, Cameron has now been in the band nearly as long as he was in Soundgarden. I still think of him as the Soundgarden drummer playing for Pearl Jam. He sounds amazing.

Vedder took several minutes to give a warmhearted shout-out to Nirvana bassist/SW columnist Krist Novoselic. He then informed the audience that Krist asked him to relay to them that they should vote for Dow Constantine -- not Susan Hutchison -- in the King County Executive race. "I know we said we weren't going to talk politics."

Show closer: "Alive": The song's guitar intro is among the most identifiable of the grunge era, and is tied for second ("Smells Like Teen Spirit" is obviously the winner here) with "Black Hole Sun" as the era's definitive riff. I still get chills every time I hear it. Tonight was no exception.

Broseph, after the show: "Dude, that fucking concert rocked my balls off."

Set list:

Set 1

Long Road
Corduroy
Gonna See My Friend
Got Some
Hail, Hail
Amongst The Waves
Daughter
Even Flow
Johnny Guitar
Unthought Known
World Wide Suicide
Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town
Off He Goes
Down
Save You
The Fixer
Life Wasted

Encore 1

Just Breathe
The End
Inside Job
Rearviewmirror

Encore 2

Given To Fly
Do The Evolution
Better Man
The Real Me
Indifference
Alive