Pearl Jam at the O2 Arena
O2 Arena, 18 June 2018
There were jokes about sounding like Liam Gallagher, a Donald Trump mask being forced to drink wine, the usual Eddie Vedder nostalgia about Britain (The Who etc, etc) and more and more tambourines being chucked into the audience. And of course Pearl Jam tunes aplenty despite Eddie clearly struggling with a sore throat. But I am so done with arena shows.
Arena shows are such a strange beast because there is so much effort to get a good spot when the floor is standing and unless you enjoy hanging around for hours, it almost spoils the whole thing. With Pearl Jam, because we had bought the tickets through the fan club, there was the added eternally long queue to pick up the tickets and then, despite having early entry, having to queue for ages again to get into the actual venue (the merchandise queues were equally insane). Then it was a couple of hours before the band actually came on (they were late by about 30 minutes) and finally, the actual show was exhaustingly long too.
There were, of course, many fans who were in heaven at the 27 song long set, especially when a rarer track came up, but after the concise, intimate and early-ending Lump show I attended at the start of the month (so enjoyable and perfect), the Pearl Jam show was way too much of a good thing. Eight songs into the encore (yes, that's right the encore was actually ten songs long!), I was just willing it all to end.
I do admit I am spoiled in regards to Pearl Jam. I haven't seen them as much as some hardcore fans, and believe me their fans are incredibly hardcore traveling from all around the world to attend as many shows as they can (one fan I saw boasting that he had been to see them over 80 times), but I have been lucky enough to have caught them right at the very start, seeing them in their absolute prime in small venues, so I remember them when they were young, raw and exciting in a way they can never return to so it's perhaps unfair to even make a comparison to that time.
That said they haven't released an album in five years and their sets right now are filled with songs I seen them play many times before. Yes, it is wonderful the way the crowd sings every word of Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town and there is something nice about the shared experience of it all but at the same time I've seen it all before so many times that it loses so much of its magic.
There was a time when you were never sure if the band would play their most famous song, Alive, but now its pretty much a given and the set even had no less than six songs from their classic debut album Ten (and it would have been seven - Jeremy was on the set list but was changed at the last minute to their cover of Last Kiss due to Eddie's vocal troubles).
All this, of course, is why fans spend hundreds of pounds and travel hundreds of miles to see them live over and over again, so who am I to rain on their parade, but for me Pearl Jam have been a victim of their own popularity where fans fight to get the last exclusive poster for each show and are ecstatic to watch their small figures from the back of a huge arena while they sing along to the only band they care about (two fans around me confessed that Pearl Jam are the only band they ever listen to!). Yes, I know Pearl Jam change up their set lists every night and I admire them for that, but it doesn't feel as fresh as it used it. Simply put, it's no longer for me.
Of course there were many good things about the show. I always like when Eddie gets political, mouthing off again about the awful Trump (before Love Boat Captain: "I'd like to send this one to the guy who is in the White House back in the States... to moms and dads being separated at the borders, this isn't the country I remember") and later bringing out a terrible looking Trump mask and making it drink some of his wine.
After a double assault of Animal and Brain Of J, Eddie apologised about his voice, telling us he had been to a voice doctor today and offered him £10,000 to make him sound like Adele. "That is a million dollar voice, he said, but for 59 quid I can make you sound like Liam Gallagher!" I thought this was extremely funny, as Liam is just terrible, but Ed said he was sorry, that he knew Liam "he's a tough guy from a tough town and besides it would take £100,000 to get me to look like him!" Given Eddie is far more handsome than the ape-like Liam, I simply rolled my eyes at that one.
Music-wise I particularly enjoyed Do The Evolution, where at least Eddie's voice was given a little bit of a break as it's mostly talking (he warned us about his voice being bad and that he may need a little help: "the sad songs may sound sadder and the angry songs angrier tonight"), the always beautiful Deep and new song Can't Deny Me (there were plenty of people around wearing t-shirts with this written across them).
For the encore it was nice to hear Eddie's gentle solo track Sleeping By Myself played on ukulele (although no way as great as during his solo Hammersmith shows last year) and the old Pearl Jam B-side Footsteps, which I had never heard them play live before and sounded rather beautiful.
Rather sweetly after this, Ed brought on stage his younger brother Mike, who is a teacher and has never been to Europe before, to introduce him to the crowd. He does look like Eddie in profile at least and I saw him having a blast by the side of the stage for the entire show - Eddie even threw him a tambourine at the end.
Near the end Eddie acknowledged all the people in various parts of the arena including those in the seats behind the stage and the whole band actually turned around to perform Last Kiss for those folks who had been watching the back of their heads for the whole night, which was nice.
At the end they played their cover of Rockin' In The Free World with Eddie throwing out tambourines to anyone who caught his eye. I think he must have thrown out twenty at the very least. He's keeping one tambourine company in profit anyway.
For the whole show if was clear that Eddie was struggling to sing, although he seemed in good spirits, so it was no surprise that the next night was cancelled at the last minute, causing me to sigh a huge sigh of relief as I had tickets to both nights (my brother is the biggest fan) and I was dreading going through the whole thing again so soon.
Interestingly Jimmy Page was on the side of the stage for most of the show (with his red-headed wife who looked like his granddaughter, it was quite creepy) and we wondered if he might join them for a song but apart from some mentions on the stage and Mike McCready adding a bit of Led Zep's Dazed And Confused into the final song, that was all we got. Page had wisely left by then anyway, only sticking out about two songs of the encore (who can blame him).
Despite all my queuing my view was obscured, so I couldn't really see Matt Cameron at all tonight but the little I saw of Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and McCready (although maybe less so him), made me think they were all looking and acting a lot older, which of course they are. That, along with Vedder's voice troubles, is probably why they seem like they are going through the motions a bit these days.
It could be I'm being harsh and this was an off-night for the band due to Eddie not being 100 per cent but I know I left feeling tired and uninspired by the whole thing.
One thing's for sure though, if I ever do venture back into an arena for a show like this, next time I'm getting a seat!
Arena shows are such a strange beast because there is so much effort to get a good spot when the floor is standing and unless you enjoy hanging around for hours, it almost spoils the whole thing. With Pearl Jam, because we had bought the tickets through the fan club, there was the added eternally long queue to pick up the tickets and then, despite having early entry, having to queue for ages again to get into the actual venue (the merchandise queues were equally insane). Then it was a couple of hours before the band actually came on (they were late by about 30 minutes) and finally, the actual show was exhaustingly long too.
There were, of course, many fans who were in heaven at the 27 song long set, especially when a rarer track came up, but after the concise, intimate and early-ending Lump show I attended at the start of the month (so enjoyable and perfect), the Pearl Jam show was way too much of a good thing. Eight songs into the encore (yes, that's right the encore was actually ten songs long!), I was just willing it all to end.
I do admit I am spoiled in regards to Pearl Jam. I haven't seen them as much as some hardcore fans, and believe me their fans are incredibly hardcore traveling from all around the world to attend as many shows as they can (one fan I saw boasting that he had been to see them over 80 times), but I have been lucky enough to have caught them right at the very start, seeing them in their absolute prime in small venues, so I remember them when they were young, raw and exciting in a way they can never return to so it's perhaps unfair to even make a comparison to that time.
That said they haven't released an album in five years and their sets right now are filled with songs I seen them play many times before. Yes, it is wonderful the way the crowd sings every word of Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town and there is something nice about the shared experience of it all but at the same time I've seen it all before so many times that it loses so much of its magic.
All this, of course, is why fans spend hundreds of pounds and travel hundreds of miles to see them live over and over again, so who am I to rain on their parade, but for me Pearl Jam have been a victim of their own popularity where fans fight to get the last exclusive poster for each show and are ecstatic to watch their small figures from the back of a huge arena while they sing along to the only band they care about (two fans around me confessed that Pearl Jam are the only band they ever listen to!). Yes, I know Pearl Jam change up their set lists every night and I admire them for that, but it doesn't feel as fresh as it used it. Simply put, it's no longer for me.
Of course there were many good things about the show. I always like when Eddie gets political, mouthing off again about the awful Trump (before Love Boat Captain: "I'd like to send this one to the guy who is in the White House back in the States... to moms and dads being separated at the borders, this isn't the country I remember") and later bringing out a terrible looking Trump mask and making it drink some of his wine.
After a double assault of Animal and Brain Of J, Eddie apologised about his voice, telling us he had been to a voice doctor today and offered him £10,000 to make him sound like Adele. "That is a million dollar voice, he said, but for 59 quid I can make you sound like Liam Gallagher!" I thought this was extremely funny, as Liam is just terrible, but Ed said he was sorry, that he knew Liam "he's a tough guy from a tough town and besides it would take £100,000 to get me to look like him!" Given Eddie is far more handsome than the ape-like Liam, I simply rolled my eyes at that one.
For the encore it was nice to hear Eddie's gentle solo track Sleeping By Myself played on ukulele (although no way as great as during his solo Hammersmith shows last year) and the old Pearl Jam B-side Footsteps, which I had never heard them play live before and sounded rather beautiful.
Rather sweetly after this, Ed brought on stage his younger brother Mike, who is a teacher and has never been to Europe before, to introduce him to the crowd. He does look like Eddie in profile at least and I saw him having a blast by the side of the stage for the entire show - Eddie even threw him a tambourine at the end.
Near the end Eddie acknowledged all the people in various parts of the arena including those in the seats behind the stage and the whole band actually turned around to perform Last Kiss for those folks who had been watching the back of their heads for the whole night, which was nice.
At the end they played their cover of Rockin' In The Free World with Eddie throwing out tambourines to anyone who caught his eye. I think he must have thrown out twenty at the very least. He's keeping one tambourine company in profit anyway.
 | |||
| The stage had these eye-catching lit-up balls that rose and fell in a Spinal Tap-eque way |
Interestingly Jimmy Page was on the side of the stage for most of the show (with his red-headed wife who looked like his granddaughter, it was quite creepy) and we wondered if he might join them for a song but apart from some mentions on the stage and Mike McCready adding a bit of Led Zep's Dazed And Confused into the final song, that was all we got. Page had wisely left by then anyway, only sticking out about two songs of the encore (who can blame him).
Despite all my queuing my view was obscured, so I couldn't really see Matt Cameron at all tonight but the little I saw of Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and McCready (although maybe less so him), made me think they were all looking and acting a lot older, which of course they are. That, along with Vedder's voice troubles, is probably why they seem like they are going through the motions a bit these days.
It could be I'm being harsh and this was an off-night for the band due to Eddie not being 100 per cent but I know I left feeling tired and uninspired by the whole thing.
One thing's for sure though, if I ever do venture back into an arena for a show like this, next time I'm getting a seat!
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