August 2000, MARS Music Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, Fla.
I think of Pearl Jam as my generation’s Grateful Dead, especially when it comes to its shows. The band never minded if people recorded, and went so far as to record most shows during this particular tour and put them up for people to buy at a cut rate. After 10 albums the band is bound to play anything, and has been known to play all sorts of covers. This is its 25th year of being a band, and will certainly enter the hall of fame based on its endearing love of its fans, endless supply of great music, and of course Eddie Vedder, one of rock’s great frontmen.
It would have been great to see the band in its early days, I never got the chance, but I will admit to losing interest in the band after Vs. Ten is, obviously, one of the finest albums made in the past 30 years, and Vs. has an edge hard to deny. But everything after Vitalogy didn’t rouse me in any particular way — it’s not bad music, I simply didn’t seek it out. When I learned it was touring in 2000 for its sixth album Binaural, I was interested. When I learned Sonic Youth was opening, I was in.
Sonic Youth is an eternal part of my youth — in college I used to sit in my apartment with my roommate Julian and we’d listen to EVOL, Sister and Daydream Nation on a constant basis. From 1985 to 1992 the band released six albums — six — one stronger than the other. When Dirty came out in 1992, it was an unprecedented run from the no wave kings. Since then Thurston, Kim, Leo and Steve have pumped out seven more albums — it’s a truly prolific band. Eddie Vedder made no secret he was thrilled to watch the band play every night, and has called Daydream Nation one of his all-time favorite albums.
On this night, Sonic Youth opened the set with “Teen Age Riot,” the first song on Daydream, adding sterling songs “Bull in the Heather,” “Kool Thing” and “100%” to their 45-minute set. I sat in the lawn for this show (with my friend Jon), and still Kim Gordon resonated off the stage from far away, she’s one of the coolest singers of a band anywhere (did you see her sing “Aneurysm” for Nirvana during the Hall of Fame? It was astounding). Sonic Youth ripped it up.
Pearl Jam came out a half-hour later, and over two hours created a show of surprise mixed with old favorites, deep tracks and one dynamic cover. The band opened with a pair of songs from Binaural — “Of the Girl” and “Breakerfall” — before “Corduroy” stirred the crowd up. The pairing of “Once” and “Animal” set the crowd into a small frenzy — I get the sense any time Eddie Vedder sings something from Ten, the crowd falls into an all-out swoon (this happened later with “Even Flow” and then “Black,” which saw the audience barely able to keep it together from all its shaking adulation).
Vedder was in good form, he connected with the large crowd in an earnest way, finding an extra gear in “Daughter” and “Better Man,” making already good songs find an added something in the live setting. The band ended the main set with “Porch,” a total surprise I must say, before an extended encore that included “Black,” “Do the Evolution” as well as covers “Crazy Mary,” “Last Kiss” and “Baba O’Riley”. The latter, a favorite of mine from one of the greatest bands ever, was a treat — there’s nothing quite like watching Eddie Vedder scream “teenage wasteland.”
The band returned for one more song — “Yellow Ledbetter” — before calling it a night. Much like Springsteen, Pearl Jam gives the audience a show to keep with them forever. The great ones always do.
