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There's a smell of America at a Pearl Jam concert, ever since they appeared in a memorable unplugged session for the less memorable MTV in '92. Another "Desert Storm" of those years, still young enough to keep the political ideology of rock alive, after the deadly slumber of the brains of the '80s, from which we all emerged alive by miracle. Back to the birth, to the roots of the idea (Here's my rifle, men! I'll fight with this) and yet it was nothing but "Alive" unplugged: Jack Endino always refused to talk about "grunge," he preferred to call it "new American rock & roll," showing he had foresight.
Some centuries later, that is now, at the concert at Wembley Arena with ten thousand other nostalgics, time has stood still: it doesn't matter if it was the beginning or the end of ideology, the truth is that wherever we've been, we're the only ones who have aged. Politics is always the same, always the same war, the same desert and the same flock, even the counter-attack seemed the same to me, with Tony Blair defined as "the passenger of a drunk driver - Bush" even as the first encore, a solo acoustic named "No More War" clearly of Springsteenian matrix ("It all started from a conversation about hell," Eddie informs us). Aside from this, the concert saw the performance of many (probably too many) recent songs, b-sides, and outtakes (above all the relentless "Down"); some compositions (rightly) little remembered ("Lowlight") and ballads of dark light ("Indifference," "Immortality"), before closing with a long tail of "Rocking In A Free World" by Neil Young.
Not a single song from the second album "Vs," only one from "Ten," quite a bit from "Riot Act" and the latest self-titled one. Musically, they prove to be a band still talented. The Pearl Jam of today increasingly resemble The Who: Mike McCready waves his arms like a madman for a place in Paradise; for now, he's set to wait: the seats for Saint guitarists are already all occupied and he doesn't want to be on the waitlist.
There's a smell of America at a Pearl Jam concert; there's the smell of the years of those who, like the one writing now, had exactly the right age (half of whatever age that might be) to scream "Black" at full lungs at lame parties somewhere in the past millennium: exactly the day we realized we had emerged alive by miracle from the '80s. Grunge was probably the most important musical movement after punk, the latter genre not retaining much of music.
Trying to forget the various commercial European Festivals, it had been almost ten years since Pearl Jam played in a setting - like that of Wembley Arena - perfectly suited to their status. Vedder’s voice is objectively fantastic, like an epileptic drunkard; McCready's solos ("Crazy Mary," "Why Go" - the latter played with the guitar behind his back) are what remains (depending on how much humanity you have left) of the best music that could be supposed possible after the death of the (musical) lead years (1981-1989): the grunge (or American rock & roll) epic is the piercing beauty of "Marker In The Sand," dug in the sand of memories.
Is it only the devotion of the fan that prevents memories from turning into an apotheosis of collective self-indulgence? Or is the truth that there are only memories and everything else isn't real?
p.s.: A well-deserved thanks to donzaucher, whom I have come to love as a brother, not only because he comes all the way to my house to accompany me to the best concerts, but especially because he always gifts me the ticket (very expensive: in the face of the war against Ticketmaster!).
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