One question was answered with a resounding yes last night at the Saddledome. "Does anyone still care about Pearl Jam?" Just over 16,000 strong showed up to offer an affirmative.

For their part, the Seattle veterans also provided an answer to the much more difficult question of why.

Commercially, the band, due to a number of factors -- the death of the movement they were the mainstream face of, their own stance against the music industry, etc. -- haven't been much of a force for the past decade. And many of the songs they brought with them were a pretty good indication of why -- all of the power but little of the melody of those early days. It didn't help last night the oft-sketchy 'Dome sound was on the boggy side of things.

You had to look to the six members on stage to offer a response, which they did, tearing through the first 20 minutes of a sweaty set without a word. None were needed.

The guitars of Stone Gossard and Mike McCready bullied for attention while drummer Matt Cameron hammered out a statement all his own.

As for Eddie Vedder, he was predictably the focal point, playing the detached, yet enigmatic frontman to the crowd behind and in front of the bare bones stage to rapturous response.

At the half-hour mark, he finally engaged the audience verbally, making note of the recent tragedy in New Orleans while predictably taking a political pot-shot at the same time.

And while a moment like that might have brought many an arena rock show to a screeching halt, Pearl Jam picked right where they left off and even raised the intensity, helped by dipping back to that melodic hey-day for the hit Even Flow.

In doing so, they gave the only answer they needed to. Why? Because Pearl Jam have enough of a past to bring 16,000 out and enough power as a pure rock band to get them out of their seats.

As for openers The Supersuckers, they started off tentative and somewhat subdued, but by the end of their 45-minute set, they had won people over with their humour and muscular rock 'n' roll sound.