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The Rice Thresher
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Elizabeth Jardina thresher editorial staff Let's start being honest about our rock stars. There's Pearl Jam - but really there's just Eddie Vedder. I know, I remember Pearl Jam's whole campaign about how the band is a band, not a solo act, and how Eddie isn't any more important than the rest of them. I memorized their names: Mike, Stone, Jeff and that drummer guy. But when they were onstage at the Woodlands Pavilion Oct. 14, all I watched was Eddie. He was standing front and center and he was magnetic, with his expansive and gravelly voice, his body tensely focused on the microphone. The cheering was at its loudest when Eddie came onto the stage during the first encore, accompanied only by his ukulele. A rock star, a spotlight and a ukulele - now that's what I call a concert. Pearl Jam has mellowed in the past few years. They've gone from the angry guys testifying in Congress about Ticketmaster's monopoly, intentionally releasing singles off Yield and No Code they knew wouldn't make it on the radio, pushing away fame as hard as it was pushing to envelop them and are now a bunch of guys who get together and make good music. Their new album, Binaural, represents a further step in their evolution away from the grunge rock that made them famous. That's probably why it (and Yield and No Code) never had the monstrous success of their first album, Ten, or their second, Vs. But in Pearl Jam's two and a half hour concert in Houston, they didn't really want to challenge us too much. They wanted to play some music and have a good time, and they wanted their fans to do the same. The band that's virtually made a career out of being unhappy seemed content. The setlist was evenly taken from all of their albums, much to the delight of the audience, especially when they returned to their grunge past and their familiar radio singles - "Jeremy," "Betterman," "Corduroy," "Alive," "Black," "Yellow Ledbetter" and "Evenflow." However, there are hazards to playing so many recognizable songs. One of Pearl Jam's great strengths is its ability to create a story in a song: the boy on the mountaintop, arms raised in a V in "Jeremy"; the lonely wife in "Better Man"; the "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town." In this respect Pearl Jam's songs vary from most pop music of the past 10 years, which consists mostly of "I felt this" and "I did that." Listening to most bands makes you feel as if you are on intimate terms with the band's lead singer. Pearl Jam makes you intimately familiar with a slice of life. But listening to the slice of life in concert, accompanied by thousands of screaming people, somehow makes it lose its punch. Fans enthusiastically screaming every word of "Jeremy," which is a devastating story, made its performance very strange. This juxtaposition of jovial atmosphere and serious songs crystallized before the seventh song. Eddie, speaking close into the mike, said to his adoring public, "We did a concert in a place like this a few weeks ago - I think it was Wisconsin. It was 28 degrees. This is nice. It's like Hawaii." Like magic, someone threw leis onto the stage, which the band members dutifully donned. Eddie put his on, and as they launched into the opening chords of current radio single "Nothing As It Seems" he cheerfully told the audience that the next song would be "deep, dark and depressing."
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