Music, memories and blood rule Pearl Jam’s run at Fenway Park
By NICK TAVARES
STATIC and FEEDBACK Editor
Night two, Sept. 17, 2024. It’s about 10:30 p.m., Pearl Jam has just finished off another monster show to close out this third leg of their Dark Matter world tour, and where am I standing?
Huddled around a plastic bin on the corner of Brookline and Comm. Ave., handing some dude $30 for two bootleg t-shirts with Boston’s Citgo sign, the design swapping out “CITGO” for “VEDDER.”
It was a total spur-of-the moment splurge, and I’m not trying to encourage the bootleggers in the reading audience here. But my head was still buzzing from an insane combination of “Alive,” “Baba O’Riley” and “Yellow Ledbetter,” on top of the previous three shows I’d seen in the past couple of weeks. And I just wanted the moment to last a little longer, the memory to burn a little bit brighter.
These two nights at Fenway Park were a bit of an extension of the two shows I’d seen at Wrigley Field earlier, with each featuring all the surprises, drive, emotion and unbridled joy that keeps us all coming back, from those of us at our first show to the 10th to the 30th and onward.
The opening night got off to a rousing start thanks to Glen Hansard, whose latest forays see him branching out even farther from his busking days, reaching for almost old-school, Sonic Youth-style guitar histrionics, grounded by a prominent fiddle and Hansard’s own intrinsic sense of song craft. And as a bonus, he brought out Olivia Vedder, Eddie Vedder’s daughter, to sing “My Father’s Daughter,” their song from 2021’s Flag Day soundtrack.
That set the standard, and certainly, there were plenty of gems to be found for the setlist chasers from there. The first night saw “Blood” re-emerge in the show for the first time in six years, and it shot off like a cannon — just a glorious, booming, gigantic sound that leveled that crowd. And that night was bookended with the B-sides of the “Jeremy” single. Night two featured the first ever “Untitled/Present Tense” combo, and I believe only the third time “Untitled” flowed into a song other than “MFC” (it’s gone into “Habit” occasionally and once into “Last Kiss,” when Cameron’s drums malfunctioned during a show in Lisbon, 2000).
The entire band, on this run and this entire tour, have been firing with extreme precision. Vedder, again donning his collection of fedoras and Walter Payton’s 34 jersey, is in incredible voice — close your eyes, and it might as well be 1992. And that’s compounded by the rest of the band, of course. Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard are again locked in a groove that only 40 years together can provide, both playing heavy and hard and in sync with drummer Matt Cameron, who remains an absolute beast on the kit. And of course, Mike McCready shredded his way through these shows, burning it down on “Even Flow” both nights, “Dark Matter,” “Setting Sun” and “State of Love and Trust” on the first, “Porch,” “Immortality,” Black” and “Why Go” on the second. If they ever take a night off, I haven’t seen it. And it certainly hasn’t happened during this 2024 run.
If either night had a theme, night two might wind up being dubbed “The Fuck Show,” if longtime compatriot Bruce has anything to say about it. There have been other shows given a nickname by fans in the past, like the “Death Show” from Chicago 2009, or the “No Code Show” in Moline 2014. But the uptempo nature of the second night’s run, with “Animal,” “Save You,” “React, Respond,” “Running,” “Not for You,” “Porch,” “Why Go” and, of course, “Fuckin’ Up” all conspicuously featuring the F-bomb. There were some kids in the crowd, but, come on, they’ve heard it. And I didn’t hear anyone complaining in the moment, or any moment, for that matter.
Because on each night, there was a deliberate running pace, with moments of relief here and there to let the audience — and the band, no doubt — catch their breath. Vedder made it a point to mention the late Tim Wakefield in a story to the crowd, where he was convinced, standing in the batter’s box against the famed knuckleballer, that a pitch was going to drill him in the back, only to swoop and land right in the strike zone at the last second. And on the second night, before the “Untitled/Present Tense” combo, he sent out a dedication to Chris Snow, the former Boston Globe writer and Calgary Flames executive who recently passed away from ALS.
All of these things play into the emotion of each evening. I didn’t get quite near tears as I had in Chicago a couple of weeks earlier. But with friends making the trip in and reflecting on all these years of chasing this band around, I couldn’t help but get swept up in it each time.
But the overarching theme of this tour was just how damn good they’ve sounded. Not that they’ve sounded back in, say, the previous 10 years, but everything seemed to hit a little heavier, especially the Ten-era songs. Jumping across both nights, “Why Go,” “Jeremy,” “Black” and “State of Love and Trust,” for example, all had a heft that they’d lacked in years prior.
Again, the introduction of a monster album like Dark Matter into their catalog has to have recharged their batteries. The title track and “Scared of Fear” had that place thumping the first night, and “React, Respond” and “Waiting for Stevie” worked their magic on the second. That they’re still an all-out, fantastic live band after more than 33 years together is enough of a marvel. That they also get to ride out each night on the heels of such a strong record makes it all the more impressive.
And that’s what I’ll be buzzing off of for some time now. My time with the band this year is done — they’ll move on to the Ohaha Festival in Dana Point, Calif., in a week, then Oceania in a month or so before the 2024 tour is officially in the books. And in the meantime, I can re-read whatever I scribbled into my notebooks, look at photos, track down videos and listen to the bootlegs on repeat. It’s all a method to put me back in my spot on the field, recalling how it felt when that second show started with a bang with “Small Town” and “Even Flow,” remembering how intense “State of Love and Trust” felt, reliving McCready throwing himself into the “Yellow Ledbetter” solo each evening, dovetailing it into “The Star-Spangled Banner” on the first night and Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” on the second.
All this is accompanied by friends and family. Friends who flew in, drove in, took time off of work and went above and beyond to make it into the building on these nights, plus the new friends we meet in the bars and restaurants before the show, along with the folks in the adjacent seats who are all looking for something extraordinary for a couple of hours, everyone finding a little bit of it every time.
It’s the moment, and then it’s the memories. And this is all an exercise of making the most of the former, and stretching the latter to last as long as possible.
E-mail Nick Tavares at nick@staticandfeedback.com