{"id":992,"date":"2016-01-20T23:15:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-20T23:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=992"},"modified":"2026-06-27T23:17:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T23:17:39","slug":"pearl-jam-sonic-youth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/?p=992","title":{"rendered":"Pearl Jam, Sonic Youth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

August 2000, MARS Music Amphitheatre, <\/strong>West Palm Beach, Fla.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I think of Pearl Jam as my generation\u2019s 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\u2019s great frontmen.<\/p>\n

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<\/em>. has an edge hard to deny. But everything after Vitalogy<\/em> didn\u2019t rouse me in any particular way \u2014 it\u2019s not bad music, I simply didn\u2019t seek it out. When I learned it was touring in 2000 for its sixth album Binaural<\/em>, I was interested. When I learned Sonic Youth was opening, I was in.<\/p>\n

Sonic Youth is an eternal part of my youth \u2014 in college I used to sit in my apartment with my roommate Julian and we\u2019d listen to EVOL<\/em>, Sister<\/em> and Daydream Nation<\/em> on a constant basis. From 1985 to 1992 the band released six albums \u2014 six \u2014 one stronger than the other. When Dirty<\/em> 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 \u2014 it\u2019s a truly prolific band. Eddie Vedder made no secret he was thrilled to watch the band play every night, and has called Daydream Nation<\/em> one of his all-time favorite albums.<\/p>\n

On this night, Sonic Youth opened the set with \u201cTeen Age Riot,\u201d the first song on Daydream<\/em>, adding sterling songs \u201cBull in the Heather,\u201d \u201cKool Thing\u201d and \u201c100%\u201d 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\u2019s one of the coolest singers of a band anywhere (did you see her sing \u201cAneurysm\u201d for Nirvana during the Hall of Fame? It was astounding). Sonic Youth ripped it up.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> \u2014 \u201cOf the Girl\u201d and \u201cBreakerfall\u201d \u2014 before \u201cCorduroy\u201d stirred the crowd up. The pairing of \u201cOnce\u201d and \u201cAnimal\u201d set the crowd into a small frenzy \u2014 I get the sense any time Eddie Vedder sings something from Ten<\/em>, the crowd falls into an all-out swoon (this happened later with \u201cEven Flow\u201d and then \u201cBlack,\u201d which saw the audience barely able to keep it together from all its shaking adulation).<\/p>\n

Vedder was in good form, he connected with the large crowd in an earnest way, finding an extra gear in \u201cDaughter\u201d and \u201cBetter Man,\u201d making already good songs find an added something in the live setting. The band ended the main set with \u201cPorch,\u201d a total surprise I must say, before an extended encore that included \u201cBlack,\u201d \u201cDo the Evolution\u201d as well as covers \u201cCrazy Mary,\u201d \u201cLast Kiss\u201d and \u201cBaba O\u2019Riley\u201d. The latter, a favorite of mine from one of the greatest bands ever, was a treat \u2014 there\u2019s nothing quite like watching Eddie Vedder scream \u201cteenage wasteland.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band returned for one more song \u2014 \u201cYellow Ledbetter\u201d \u2014 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 2000, MARS Music Amphitheatre, West Palm Beach, Fla. I think of Pearl Jam as my generation\u2019s 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[178,179],"class_list":["post-992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-concerts","tag-pearl-jam","tag-sonic-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":994,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions\/994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abandonedcouches.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}