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WINNIPEG - No new album. No singles since the last millennium. No videos in more than a decade.
No problem for Pearl Jam.
The only remaining grunge band that matters (sorry, Mudhoney) have no reason to tour, but here they are playing sold-out shows across Canada.
Pearl Jam have always been a band that does what they want to do, from refusing to release videos to fighting the Ticketmaster monopoly. The band marches to their own rhythm and has earned the right to do whatever they want to do.
And they do.
Last night's concert for 15,748 at the MTS Centre -- the largest audience to fill the arena since opened last November -- wasn't for people who wanted to hear only the band's early singles. This was a show for fans who stuck with the band over the years, with obscure rarities, album tracks and covers making the set.
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There was no way to predict what was coming next. They played whatever they wanted without an obvious plan.
Under a set of bright red lights, the band got the audience into it right away with Better Man off 1994's Vitalogy. Tracks were plucked from each album for the rest of the show with Grievance off 2000's Binaural and Given to Fly from 1998's Yield making early appearances.
Frontman Eddie Vedder is the obvious focal point and has the most animated stage presence. He possesses a powerful and passionate voice which he uses to chilling effect. He spent half the night with a guitar in his hand, adding an extra dimension to the group's guitar attack.
It was half-an-hour before he acknowledged the crowd, telling them they were the loudest so far in Canada. "Before we came out the pre-show crowd was insane. We didn't know what the f--- was going on," he said to roars of approval.
Vedder doesn't seen the sort to toss out crowd pleasing platitudes, so we believed him.
With Vedder howling into the mic, Mike McCready and Stone Gossard delivered a thousand bruising riffs, while bassist Jeff Ament and drummer Matt Cameron held down the bottom end, proving they are one of the most solid rhythm sections in rock. An extra keyboardist augmented the sound.
The band have developed over the years from writing hook-filled muscular rockers to branching out into artier material. Somewhere in the middle, Pearl Jam seems to be a group jocks and metalheads can find some common ground with, as evidenced by the diverse crowd who filled the arena.
They joined together to scream the lyrics to Not For You and sing the quiet chorus of Daughter. They were further bonded by Even Flow, featuring a Middle-Eastern tinged extended guitar solo.
At press time 75-minutes into their planned two-hour set, the band was tearing through Jeremy, which had the whole crowd singing along.
Pearl Jam proved they still have some links to the underground rock scene by choosing fellow Seattle rawkers The Supersuckers to open the night.
The veteran group, led by Eddie Spaghetti, got early arrivals to raise their devil horns in the air with a mixture of high octane rock 'n' roll and countrified versions of some of their best known songs.
A disguised Vedder, wearing a silver Mexican wrestling mask, helped them finish off their 40-minute set with a cover of X's Poor Girl.