Pearl Jam
Etihad Stadium
20th Novermber 2009

Etihad Stadium is massive. How big? Looking across the "room" at the facing grandstand is to see through a mist that hangs in the air between. There's multiple atmospheres in here tonight.

Least of which is the deep vein of nostalgia for so many present. The crowd (at least in our wing of the stadium) are squarely late twenties to...fifty-ish. Not exactly a surprise for a band who's supernova days of (commercial) popularity were fifteen years ago. While not exactly relevant in 2009, the band are still a people mover. There's an air of electricity tonight that seems to be emanating from the younger crowd just as much from the diehards and 'two gigs a year' tourists. Which suggests the band aren't quite consigned to the rock dinosaur shelf just yet.

We settle into our seats, plastic cups in hand. We're on the lower deck, just 5 or 6 rows away from the packed playing field. So, closer to the action than about 75% of the rest of the stadium...and we're still miles away. When the band arrive on a traditionally unadorned stage, Eddie Vedder is as big as the i in Eddie. It's like sitting on the Sydney Harbour Bridge watching a show at the Opera House. The crowd screaming from a 747 going underneath. Yes, that distant. That loud.

Their creative peak may be bobbing in the wake of music history but make no mistake: Pearl Jam are very much still a big deal. It's no secret that the band's most vital period - and so that most dear to fans hearts - are their first three records in descending order; Ten, Vs and Vitalogy. So it's with considerable lose-your-fucking-shit-ness that they elect to open with Vs. cut 'Elderly Woman Behind A Counter In A Small Town', sparking a wave of singalong hysteria. As white light illuminates the stadium on 'I just want to scream...HELLO', it reveals a writhing sea of colourful, frenzied dots. Cheesy on paper but fucking breathtaking in person. As the band heads straight into an excitable 'Corduroy' from Vitalogy followed by 'Animal' from Vs., there's a near sigh of relief: sticking to the new stuff and turning their back on the favourites won't be the case. (As numerous mutterings on fansites and whatnot in the days since attest, the band's focus on older material and its subsequent crowd reaction will have the event go down as one of their most lauded of recent times.)

As the band heads into the middle of the set and newer material, the fever pitch subsides. Vedder dedicates 'Gonna See My Friend' to Nick Cave ("One of the greatest writers ever") and, perhaps less appropriately, 'Given To Fly' to footballer 'Mark' Richardson (he later returns to sheepishly apologise to 'Matt'). It's hard to glean nuances from a show of this magnitude, so here's some impressions from the halfway point:

- Eddie Vedder has the innate ability to channel the focus of 40,000 people and still seem like you could reach out and shake his hand. When he asks if everyone's doing ok, the shadowy minnows way up the back of the top seats wiggle in favour. (I mean, people get shitty if they can't see past the pole at their local. Here people are thrilled to pay $100 just to be in the same postcode as Vedder and Co. Even if all they can see are the giant video screens either side of the glowing canopy that presumably holds their heroes. There's no explosions and giant train (AC/DC), no fireworks or palm trees (The Killers), no spaceship (Muse, The Flaming Lips) no floating orbs and gangways into the crowd (Coldplay) no choirs and scaffolding (Rolling Stones) and there sure isn't a big dumb metal claw (U2). Pearl Jam might be playing to several cities worth of people here but they're still set up down one end on a plain stage as if they were at the school fete. So you have naught to focus on but the music and the pink streaks playing it. Crazily, it works just fine).

- Lead guitarist Mike McCready does this distracting, finger pointing thing all the time, something I've never seen him do at previous shows. He'll be in the middle of a song and suddenly point intently at some vague spot in the crowd. Every. Song. What is he, Slash? It's kind've annoying, and yet...his guitar solo's are kind've interesting. (We're in a stadium). Especially true in the jam heroics of 'Even Flow'.

- During the extended coda of the aforementioned Ten classic, and the sixth song in tonight, the band stretch their legs. A newly salt and peppered Matt Cameron's wigs out drum clinic style behind the kit, Stone Gossard with his long hair and familiar guitar strut is looking every inch the rangy but otherwise intact version of his 1993 self, and athletic bassist Jeff Ament basically looks exactly the same. Vedder's a little more 'solid' than his pin-up days but otherwise, him too.

- The subtext to this is that after twenty years of playing these songs, touring the globe and being as big as they want to be while not having to prove shit to anyone, Pearl Jam are in incredible shape. And musically, on fire. From 200 metres away - and in this giant tin can - they sound clear as a bell. Apart from having the key to the songbook of every attendees adolescence, there's a real sense that the excitement Pearl Jam evokes is in part to their sheer musicianship. Really. They could take these songs anywhere. Stretch them, play what they want. (Like they do with 'Oceans', another Ten cut that they haven't played for over a year until tonight. Someone's just requested it before they've gone on). And that's something that can't really be said of any of the above bands mentioned.

The band play for three hours. In all they play a staggering 32 songs, at least half of which stretch well beyond the five minute mark. Deliriously for the fans, eight of them are from Ten. The lesser known/newer songs don't detract, but rather serve as different tones and colours throughout the night. (Of these 'The Fixer' is easily best.) Vedder's voice is strong and clear and the band overall a ferocious and excited unit. Money's worth right there.

For the first encore Vedder returns in solo mode for Neil Young's 'Needle and The Damage Done', followed by a finger-picked version of 'Just Breathe' from new album Backspacer, that, in this setting, doesn't sound half as cringeworthy as on record. Support act Ben Harper ambles out to a huge roar, picks up his Weissenborn and sets off on a slide frenzy through 'Red Mosquito' from 1996's No Code. Once again, the sonic clarity is astounding. He stays for a co-vocalised take on 'Indifference' that sets mobile phones aloft, before disappearing to let the band tear straight through a swag of Ten hits in 'Jeremy', 'Deep' 'Why Go' and a wildly extended 'Porch'. Cue hysteria.

For the third encore Vedder again returns on his own, this time inviting first support act (and US touring buddy) Liam Finn on for an absolutely epic duo version of The Hunters and Collectors, 'Throw Your Arms Around Me'. What follows is unsettling: a unified wave of chorale singing that booms through the stadium, coming from absolutely everyone and directed at not much but the ether. It's bigger than the band, the crowd, the occasion even; a shared sliver in these people lives that overlaps uniformly. Or something. It's a joyous, weird, out of body thing. Whatever your persuasion or critical eye, I defy anyone to not be moved by it. It's the kind of occasion that is no longer about music, but a dirty word often bandied about by this group of musicians - humanity. *Cue incense sticks*. It provides the key to why Pearl Jam are so damn good at what they do: they give the experience to their audience. The band becomes merely its conduit.

(And yes, this moment is also the kind've thing that could send Finn to a lifetime of madness, in effort to one day recapture that feeling. If he's not careful.)

So defining is this moment that the rest of the encore in 'Black', 'Spin The Black Circle', 'Alive', The Who cover 'Baba O'Reilly' and finally, Ten B-Side favourite 'Yellow Ledbetter' are unfathomably played in its shadow. The last two songs are actually performed in bight white house lights as the band evidently go over time. Vedder thanks the audience and heads into the crowd to slap hands, McCready runs stage left for some final wiggly solos. The band meet front of stage to bow, (including the wizened Boom Gaspar, touring keyboardist and completely unheard all night) and then we're walking over the bridge towards Spencer Street thinking that maybe we did kind've have it right for a while all those years ago.

Marcus

(Pics: Tim O'Connor)