When Pearl Jam took the stage at Jiffy Lube Live on Thursday, the band immediately launched into a powerhouse two-hour-plus performance of hits, reliable rockers and brilliant oddities.
The Seattle grunge veterans began the night with their 1993 sing-along chart-topper “Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town.” It was a surprising song to start the evening off with, considering the track is one of the group’s better-known radio staples.
But it worked. The band then rocketed through four fast-paced songs without missing a beat. This no-nonsense approach to the music was consistent throughout the night and showcased a punk rock mentality that wants nothing to do with fluff and everything to do with to-the-point substance. It’s an ethos well-developed in Pearl Jam’s most recent album, 2009’s speedy Backspacer.
The sextet, playing with long-time touring member, organist Boom Gaspar, christened the summer concert schedule of the newly — and unfortunately — named venue (formerly Nissan Pavilion) in Bristow, Va. although the temperature wasn’t so summery.
The air was cool and in the 50s but Pearl Jam lit the pavilion on fire. A personable energy and unbridled enthusiasm emanated from the band, making the mega venue seem more like a cozy theater or large club than a cold and detached 25,000-some capacity pavilion in the middle of nowhere.
Frontman Eddie Vedder howled with an unmatchable vigor, using the same giant voice he’s supplied the band for the past two decades.
The group was clearly on its game, offering a diverse set list with an exciting but odd focus on the band’s under-appreciated 1998 LP, Yield. Concert rarity “All Those Yesterdays” made a surprise appearance right after another Yield track, “Faithfull.”
Two classics of the Pearl Jam canon shone brightly beside each other as the audience was appropriately awed.
The show continued with a welcome rendition of one of the band’s first big songs, the ballad “Black.”
After 440 live performances of “Black” (according to the band’s website), there is still something beautiful to behold when the massive audience picks up the coda’s hypnotic and moving chant of “do-do” while the band closes out the song.
Things turned sour briefly after “Black” when the left-leaning Vedder went into a political speech about lobbyists and financial reform. At one point, he asked lobbyists for investment banking and securities firm Goldman Sachs to “kill yourself.”
Luckily, Vedder caught himself at the end of his rant by saying, “We can’t condone that,” but the damage was done and a bad taste was left in most everyone’s mouth. It’s great that Vedder is unafraid to speak his mind, but such a tender subject is best left alone at events like this.
In a surreal twist, the band then rocked “The Fixer,” the lead single off of Backspacer and a positive song that has Vedder declaring, “When something’s lost/ I wanna fight to get it back again.”
After the close of its first set, the band came back to play its usual two encores, saving crowd favorites like “Better Man” and “Alive” for the last portion of the show.
Pearl Jam pulled out 1994’s vinyl-adoration stalker song “Spin The Black Circle” between those two other performances and rocked just as hard as they must have 16 years ago.
Closing with “Yellow Ledbetter” and “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the band more than proved themselves as one of the world’s last great rock bands with a concert that showed they didn’t need to prove anything at all.
rhiggins@umdbk.com
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