Concert review | Pearl Jam looks back, charges ahead at KeyArena

Concert Review |

Pearl Jam kicked off their latest tour with a sold-out KeyArena show on Monday, playing a brisk set that explored new terrain, but often nostalgically looked back. They played eight songs from their new album "Backspacer," which came out Sunday, and the economy and speed of these infused the entire show with a punk energy.

It was a generous 27-song set that touched on every album except 2000's "Binaural." The first two new numbers were "Gonna See My Friend" and "Got Some," and these seemed to animate singer Eddie Vedder. That in turn revved up guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard, who let loose on "Got Some." After the song, Vedder noted of KeyArena, "We always tear the roof off this sucker."

Some of the biggest applause came when Vedder commented on the band's special relationship with their hometown. "We're a little nervous," he joked before "Hail, Hail." "Something might go wrong with the inflatable Space Needle!" There was no Spinal Tap-moment, and other than a banner with typewriter keys, the stage was simple and austere.

Yet as befits a tour opener, the pacing still needed work, particularly when the band downshifted to catalog classics like "Off He Goes," or the B-side "Down." Vedder messed up the lyrics to "Life Wasted" when his mic stand fell apart. And "Even Flow" was so lifeless that even Vedder took time for a cigarette break.

Some moments felt more like a family reunion than a rock concert. "Daughter" seemed particularly poignant with Vedder's two daughters stage left. Drummer Matt Cameron's wife, April, played viola on "Just Breathe" and "The End" with the Octava String Quartet. Vedder couldn't help talking politics and ribbing the press, but he was also jovial. The entire band, he announced, agreed with President Obama that "Kanye West is a jackass." Vedder even offered up election suggestions, saying they'd come from a phone conversation with Nirvana's Krist Novoselic.

Another member of Nirvana once infamously described Pearl Jam as "careerists." It was a jab at their desire for wide appeal, and it was true at the time, yet two decades on, Pearl Jam have become a textbook example of how a band can mature, and, more importantly, evolve. When they brought on a horn section for the Who's "The Real Me," they didn't sound one bit like the "Ten"-era band from 1991.

But the past was never far away, and they ended with "Alive," something they've rarely done. Only a handful of the 18,000 on Monday would have been at the song's debut in 1990 at Eastlake's Off Ramp.

"Alive" was the first Pearl Jam song Vedder ever penned lyrics for, so it marked the band's beginning, and to the singer it seemed to have added meaning Monday. As Vedder belted it out with a wide-legged stance, and then later soaked up the hometown applause, it was a fitting epitaph for the night. Yet even as "Alive" represented a celebration of what has been, the title was a playful pun about how one Seattle band from the '90s still stands triumphant.

Seattle-area writer Charles R. Cross is the author of seven books including "Led Zeppelin: Shadows Taller Than Our Souls," out this week from It/Harper Collins Books. Reach him at charlesrcross@aol.com or www.charlesrcross.com.