Big hitters energise heavy-going marathon
Rock Pearl Jam The 02 Arena
★★★★★
When Pearl Jam first emerged on the same Seattle grunge scene that spawned Nirvana, they were quickly lambasted by Kurt Cobain as corporate sell-outs, who diluted their peers’ punky energy for maximum commercial gain.
Twenty-six years on, after near-perennially topping the charts Stateside, they now play marathon enormo-shows – often running to 30 songs, over a whopping three hours. What is the experience like? Gruelling, for the floating voter at least.
With minimal fanfare, the five-piece ensemble sauntered on in jeans and T-shirts, as if they’d just turned up at their local for a beer. They started with obscure album tracks, which sounded like a rootsier REM, before Eddie Vedder, their jovial yet ever angst-ridden singer, noted that his voice wasn’t in good shape, narrating that afternoon’s conversation with a throat specialist. They subsequently shifted up a gear yet, time and again, they’d light up the place with a big-hitter – a feral Do The Evolution; a soaring Porch, which saw Vedder hoisted on to shoulders in the crowd – only for the energy to be dissipated by ensuing runs of obscurities.
It felt like hard work, going into the third hour, though a jubilant home run of early-nineties biggies – Why Go, Better Man, Black, and the almighty Alive – saved the day.