Addicted To Noise
Gil Kaufman reports - Edited by Michael Goldberg
Pearl Jam Kick Ass At Secret Show: SANTA CRUZ, CA
"How did we get here?" Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder jokingly asked the wide-eyed sell-out crowd packed into Santa Cruz, Calif.'s 800-capacity Catalyst club on Wednesday (Nov. 12) night, midway through his band's surprise gig. "Why Santa Cruz? It comes down to one thing. El Nino. Warm water, big swells." Vedder could have said it was earthquakes and hand grenades that brought his band back to the small club where they had played a similar secret gig just as Vs. was released four years ago, and the audience wouldn't have batted an eye. Folks lined up three days earlier when word first broke that Pearl Jam would be playing this intimate club gig as a warm-up to Friday's first (of four) opening slots for the Rolling Stones at the decidedly less intimate Oakland Coliseum. One couple brought a Futon and spent at least one chilly night on the sidewalk, while Opie Budgaard, 29, flew in from Alaska with no guarantee of a ticket. "Hell yeah I'll be disappointed if I don't get in," he said while standing in line outside the club. For those who did score a $20 ticket, the band didn't disappoint during the 85-minute show, their only live appearance of the year so far. Opening with six classic songs in a row, the Seattle rockers gave the crowd what they wanted from the opening salvo of "Sometimes," which Vedder performed with only the glow of a single bug-lamp lantern illuminating his crown of hair, through songs such as "I Got ID," "Corduroy," "Hail, Hail," "Dissident" and "Evenflow," during which the crowd seemed to literally vibrate with energy. The real treat for fans like 19-year-old Jared Kelly, who became a mini-celebrity just hours before when a local news crew filmed his purchase of a $180 scalped ticket, was the chance to hear a handful of new songs from the band's upcoming album, due next year, Yield. "I've seen them five times," said Kelly breathlessly after the show, "and this one was the best ever! I saw their 11-4-95 show and they played [the new song] 'Brain of J' and it was not nearly as good as tonight." Kelly, whose friend Heather Powell had paid $200 for a ticket, said he'd already heard the reported first single from the album, "Given to Fly," as an MP3 file on the Internet. Vedder bounced around the stage on his toes like a shadow-boxer when he wasn't gripping the mike with both hands or playing guitar. "Ah, maybe Santa Cruz isn't the best place," he kidded, clearly enjoying himself. "I just remembered, Detroit. Detroit deserves it more. Or Cleveland. Yeah, now that I think about it, you guys are so fucking spoiled. Now we're gonna spoil you some more and play some new songs." With that, Pearl Jam tore into the uptempo "Brain of J," followed by the classically PJ ebb-and-flow of "Given to Fly," after which Vedder and bassist Jeff Ament gave each other a fist bump as seeming proof that the new material had passed the audience test. The band then unveiled a moody new number that appears to have been heavily inspired by their close association with Neil Young. The wistful "Wish List" had Vedder wishing he was everything from the star atop a Christmas tree, to an alien, to a neutron bomb, piling up so many wishes that by the end he muttered, "I wish, I wish, I wish I was, I guess I better stop," as the music came to an abrupt halt. The set roared to a close with "Nothing Man," a searing "Last Exit," during which Vedder shed his brown shirt and let out a series of guttural screams. He teased the audience by saying "this is your first chance to 'do the evolution' (a reference to a new song)," instead launching into "State of Love and Trust," during which he faked a stage dive, perhaps fearing the adoring, synchronized-pogoing crowd might not send him back to the stage this time. With the flickering of a disco ball, the band then clamped down on the new track "Do the Evolution," prefaced by a Vedder wail. "It's Evolution, baby," he screamed as he shook his head side-to-side, then swayed back and forth as Ament and guitarist Stone Gossard stepped to the microphone for the first time all night and added some falsetto backing vocals. When the band returned for an encore, Gossard admitted that they were just "getting our sea legs, we haven't played live in a while." Vedder took a moment to whip out his cell phone, telling the crowd it was "Neil's birthday," referring to Young. "Hey Neil, it's Ed, we wanna sing 'Happy Birthday' to you." Once the crowd had serenaded Young, much to Vedder's amusement, the band leaned into "Immortality," during which drummer Jack Irons performed a very Keith-Moon-like drum jam, bashing the cymbals within an inch of their lives. The show ended with a hushed "Once" and a crowd-pleasing rendition of "Alive" that sounded just as huge and anthemic as it would in a stadium filled with 15,000 more rabid fans.
Wall of Sound
Pearl Jam Billed as the Honking Seals, Pearl Jam played a secret show in Santa Cruz, California, previewing four new songs from their forthcoming album, Yield, in the process
By Josh Freedom du Lac
SANTA CRUZ, NOVEMBER 12-While most of California had a hopeful eye on a $31 million state lottery jackpot, at least eight hundred people were already lucky winners for another reason: they saw Pearl Jam's first concert in nearly a year. Warming up for its four-night run as the Rolling Stones' Oakland Coliseum support act, the Seattle quintet dusted off its stage gear for the first time since a November 25, 1996, show in Lisbon, Portugal, to perform a surprisingly tight and fluid eighty-minute, sixteen-song set Wednesday night at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz. Though the crowd responded strongest to the familiar likes of "Corduroy," "Even Flow," and "Alive," the most notable songs in the set were the ones nobody had ever heard before, as Pearl Jam (performing under the alias the Honking Seals) unveiled four new numbers from its forthcoming album, Yield, scheduled for release in early February: •"Brain of J," a slashing, largely unmelodic, warp-speed rocker apparently about JFK. An early incarnation of the song was played at a handful of shows on Pearl Jam's 1995 fall tour. •"Given to Fly," Yield's pretty first single, which loosely resembles Led Zeppelin's "Going to California." •"Wish List," a spare and tender mid-tempo song with wistful lyrics in which Eddie Vedder wishes, among other things, that he could be the star on top of the Christmas tree. •"Do the Evolution," the strangest song in the Pearl Jam catalog this side of Vitalogy's "Bugs." Written by Vedder and guitarist Stone Gossard during the latter stages of recording for the new album, the ferocious, but still funny, song opened with Vedder's wolf-like howl, featured droning guitar riffs and barked vocals about "evolution, baby--do the evolution," and eventually broke off into some cheeky Rocky Horror Picture Show-style vocal operatics. To top it off, a disco ball was turned on during the song's public debut Wednesday. The spinning mirror ball was one of several unexpectedly light moments provided throughout the evening by the typically serious band, which appeared energized by its return to the stage. "Why Santa Cruz?" Vedder asked rhetorically at one point. "It all comes down to one thing: El Nino. . . . I can't think of anybody who deserves it more." Vedder, who is known for his sense of purpose and not necessarily his sense of humor, then interrupted the crowd's roar of approval to add: "I just remembered Detroit. I think Detroit deserves it more. Or Cleveland. Now that I think about it, you guys are so fucking spoiled." Later, Vedder pulled a portable phone from his pocket and explained to the crowd that a birthday gift he had received was finally coming in handy, since Wednesday was his good friend Neil Young's birthday. "Neil, this is Eddie and Jack and Jeff," Vedder said into the phone after dialing Young's number. "We're going to sing 'Happy Birthday' to you." The show had not gotten off to a promising start, as a piercing blast of feedback caused the group to abort the opening "Sometimes" after just a few bars. "Such a nice song--you want to be able to hear it," Vedder said. Quickly, though, the group restarted the meditative, introspective song mid-verse and would not stumble much the rest of the night, misfiring only during "Corduroy," when a guitar summit featuring Vedder, Gossard, and Mike McCready (playing more leads than ever in the show) seemed to collapse in mid-jam; and again during the show-closing "Alive," when Gossard and McCready both stopped playing and stared at each other in shock. Curiously, Vedder avoided the deep reaches of his baritone much of the night, digging down for his warm vocal trademark only during the show-stopping "Off He Goes," a rambling, folksy song that could have been written by Tom Petty or even the Some Girls-era Rolling Stones. Still, with Pearl Jam playing with passion and intensity (and Vedder sporting a floppy new haircut that resembles an early Mick Jagger 'do), those same Stones--now in their borderline-autopilot Bridges to Babylon era-- just might be challenged for the title of greatest rock band in the world when the two groups share the stage starting Friday in Oakland.
Complete Set List: "Sometimes," "I Got ID," "Corduroy," "Hail, Hail," "Dissident," "Even Flow," "Brain of J," "Given to Fly," "Wish List," "Off He Goes," "Last Exit," "State of Love and Trust," "Do the Evolution," "Immortality," "Once," "Alive."