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Review and set list: Pearl Jam paid tribute to the Gaudreau brothers, shouted out JC Dobbs, and rocked Wells Fargo Center
10
Sep
Sep
The first song Pearl Jam played on Saturday at the sold-out Wells Fargo Center was “Long Road,” a slow-burning elegy that Eddie Vedder wrote after learning of the death of his high school drama teacher that was released on Merkin Ball, a 1995 EP that accompanied Mirror Ball, the album the band recorded with Neil Young,
It was a typical Pearl Jam opening, an unhurried deep cut on a darkened stage, obscure to outsiders but right in the wheelhouse of the band’s passionate fan base that’s intimate with the enduring band’s back catalog and fully aware that no two set lists are alike and every bruising, generous-spirited show will take unexpected turns.
“Long Road” also hits on the themes of loss and endurance baked into the band’s DNA, as well as the Seattle ensemble’s keen awareness of its own lineage as grunge-era survivors who mean to carry on the legacies of both their classic rock heroes and the DIY punk ethos that animates the community building that’s a key element of the band’s identity.
Pearl Jam has continued to survive and thrive even after so many of their grunge contemporaries have tragically fallen — most famously Kurt Cobain, but also Alice in Chains’ Layne Staley, Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell, and Screaming Trees’ Mark Lanegan.
Along with those fallen comrades, Vedder could not forget Andrew Wood, the leader of Mother Love Bone, whose members included Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, and whose death in 1990 paved the way for Pearl Jam to exist.
One of the most moving moments in a 2-hour-15-minute night full of them came in the midst of the eight-song encore that included a Vedder solo-singalong version of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” (played on a guitar gifted him by Petty), as well as a tambourine-tossing take on The Who’s “Baba O’Riley.” It was a soaring, emotional mash-up of the Mother Love Bone’s “Chloe Dancer” and “Crown of Thorns.” Vedder introduced it by saying the band only played it “on special occasions.”
And what was so special about Saturday night? Well for one thing, the band was in Philadelphia.
The long road of Pearl Jam — who are touring behind Dark Matter, their new rock-solid 12th album, which they played a sizable chunk of Saturday — has frequently wound its way through the city at momentous moments in the band’s career.
In 2009, Pearl Jam played the final four shows at South Philly’s Spectrum before it was demolished, including memorably dressing up as Devo on Halloween. In 2016, the band played its 1991 debut album, Ten, from start to finish at Well Fargo Center for the only time ever to mark its 10th sellout of a Philly arena. (Monday’s second Wells Fargo show will bring the tally to 12.)
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