Pearl Jam -- (from left to right) Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Eddie Veder, Matt Cameron and Mike McCready -- are a little older but much wiser.

Starting tonight, Toronto gets a big, personal thank you from Pearl Jam as they kick off their 2006 world tour with two dates this week at the Air Canada Centre.

It may be their last Canadian performance.

"It's harder to tour now, for sure," said bassist Jeff Ament, yesterday, in town rehearsing for the shows.

"Not only are you away from home, but physically it's hard -- I'm 43 years old and I have to work out every morning, do yoga, get massages and all that, just to be able to play the show every night. Everyone was super excited about this record, including me, so that's why we're going out for 80-plus shows. But this could be our last show here for a while."

The Seattle quintet, rounded out by vocalist/guitarist Eddie Vedder, guitarist Stone Gossard, drummer Matt Cameron and guitarist Mike McCready, are touring in support of their eighth studio album, a self-titled, 13-track project released last week.

They have been selective about where they will play on this tour. Ament says they're not playing "places they should be," such as Texas, Florida, and parts of Northern Europe.

It seems pretty weighty then, that they've not only committed themselves to two Toronto shows (the only Canadian dates), but have decided to launch the entire tour here. "We had so much fun on our last Canadian tour and Toronto's such an amazing, multicultural city and is such a good representation of North America," said Ament. "I really get the sense that people love the arts here and love the music, and it feels like people really do care. That's why we're here, that's why we're kicking the tour off here."

The group, which last played Toronto in December, have decided to donate one dollar from every ticket sold to a local charity in each city they play.

Since the band's Vitalogy Foundation will support the U.S. charities, the group has decided to donate $1 Canadian per ticket from their own pockets for the Toronto dates. Tuesday's proceeds go to the anti-violence-against-women White Ribbon Campaign, and Wednesday's show will support Sketch -- a non-profit initiative that engages homeless youth in the arts.

It's only the tip of a 15-year philanthropic history for Pearl Jam, who have contributed to numerous benefit concerts, albums and other charitable efforts, including Tibetan Freedom concerts, cancer benefits, Neil Young's annual Bridge School benefit concerts -- the list goes on and on.

"We blew up right off the bat and so the (charitable work) was a really great way for us to handle coming into a bunch of money," said Ament. "We knew we wanted to give back, we had a lot of conversations very early on about how we wanted to do things."

Over the years, the band has publicly put a lot of effort into donating money and time to various non-profits, and also towards keeping ticket and merchandise prices low (remember the mid-'90s TicketMaster boycott?).

Well, they're back on the TicketMaster boat, and at $60.50 a pop, a seat at the show certainly isn't cheap.

"The first nine years as a band we didn't make any money touring, so there came a point where we wanted to feel good about going out there for eight months and to be able to make a little money," said Ament. "Every once in a while I hear somebody make a comment about how we wear this punk-rock ethos on our sleeves, but we're multi-millionaires. We work our asses off and have worked our asses off for a long time, and not only does the band give away a lot of money but we all individually give a lot of money away and are very involved in (good causes). I feel good about what we do with the money we make -- not a lot of it is wasted."

Pricey or not, the shows are almost sold-out. It's no secret Toronto loves Pearl Jam. Ament says they'll tailor a set list specifically to this city -- something they do for every place they visit.

"Every night we sit down before the show and make up a set list for that night, specific to the place we're playing. Ed takes great care in paying attention to what's happening in every place we go," said Ament. "I think our concerts are real and it's not David Lee Roth up there giving the same spiel every night -- our shows take on a life of their own."

Ament says he thinks this is the reason Pearl Jam fans remain so loyal.

"They get excited about that moment in a show that wasn't scripted -- that they're going to witness something that only happens once and I think that happens almost every single night," said Ament. "We really push ourselves to get into new territory every night."

The last time Pearl Jam played Toronto, Bono showed up as a surprise guest for a rare live off-the-cuff collaboration.

When asked if the band has any similar surprises up their collective sleeve for this week's shows, Ament remained evasive.

"I don't know who's in town right now that we know," he said. "It's too bad, The Strokes guys were here just a couple of days ago. We could've gotten those guys out to bang on a couple tambourines or something, but I think they left yesterday. I don't really know -- if you run into anybody who wants to play tambourine, let me know."