The Mercury News - Santa Cruz review
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Eddie Vedder gives Santa Cruz a little extra
Concert tour continues Monday in Berkeley
By Shay Quillen
Mercury News
Eddie Vedder didn't have to make the extra effort. The 2,000 or so who crammed into Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Saturday were thrilled just to be in the presence of rock royalty, as the lead singer of Pearl Jam took the stage for the first U.S. performance of his first solo acoustic tour. (The tour continues with sold-out shows at Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium tonight and Tuesday.)
But after nearly two hours of stripped-down Pearl Jam obscurities, living-room ukulele ditties, favorite covers, a quirky room-service anecdote, a beautiful experiment in vocal loops and several songs from Vedder's soundtrack to Sean Penn's "Into the Wild," Vedder launched into "Pulling Into Santa Cruz," a loving ode to Surf City penned that very afternoon in lieu of catching some waves.
"I can feel the lifting of my blues," he sang, "pulling into Santa Cruz."
Aww, Eddie, you shouldn't have.
It was a dream night for Pearl Jam fans, and an ultimately satisfying evening even for those who aren't a member of that particular flannel-clad tribe.
Vedder's young friend Liam Finn began the evening with a set that focused more on noise and mayhem and less on melodic song-craft than the one he delivered last year in Oakland before his father's band, Crowded House. We'd see more of him and his sidekick, singer E-J Barnes, later.
Vedder took center stage around 8:30, perched on a stool amid various electric and acoustic instruments, a Corona case on its side and a reel-to-reel tape player nearby. He was attended to by a roadie in a white lab coat, in keeping with the experimental vibe of the evening.
Vedder began with an assortment of lesser-known Pearl Jam tunes, starting with "Walking the Cow," before heading into five tunes from "Into the Wild." Next came a pair of unrecorded ukulele ditties - one sad, one upbeat - before a mix of Pearl Jam tunes and songs from James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan, plus a singalong on the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away."
Accompanying himself on guitar, the rock icon proved himself a capable finger-picker, though he often revved up the crowd by simply strumming chords with violent force like a juiced up Melissa Etheridge. The technique always got applause, and it worked fine on Pearl Jam barn-burners, but it detracted from numbers like the otherwise straightforward version of Taylor's "Millworker." For the "Into the Wild" soundtrack's "Rise," Vedder pulled out a mandolin, which he described as "kind of a bluegrass ukulele," explaining precisely his ham-handed approach to the instrument.
Though Vedder was understated and anything but the flashy rock star, the singer's star power did sometimes threaten to dwarf the intimacy of the music. For a version of Dylan's "Forever Young," Vedder had the lights turned low to try to put the focus simply on the lyrics. "I'm just trying to get a message to you," he said.
Vedder ended his 80-minute set with a powerful acoustic version of Pearl Jam's "Porch," then came back with Finn by his side for a set of encores that began with "Happy Birthday," dedicated in absentia to his PJ band-mate Mike McCready. That one was followed by a lovely Vedder/Finn duet on "Society," one of the best tunes from "Into the Wild" (composed by North Bay singer-songwriter Jerry Hannan). Next, Vedder donned a white lab coat and took a page from the Finn playbook by laying down a beautiful eight-bar vocal loop and wailing over top of it; the music continued as the curtains closed and Vedder took his "final" bows.
But he returned once more, for the aforementioned Santa Cruz song. The night ended with the whole company, including Finn on drums, performing a rousing version of "Hard Sun," the obscure '80s Canadian track that Vedder resurrected for "Into the Wild."
Guess what? This promising folksinger sounds good with a band, too.
Shay Quillen - squillen@mercurynews.com
Eddie Vedder gives Santa Cruz a little extra
Concert tour continues Monday in Berkeley
By Shay Quillen
Mercury News
Eddie Vedder didn't have to make the extra effort. The 2,000 or so who crammed into Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Saturday were thrilled just to be in the presence of rock royalty, as the lead singer of Pearl Jam took the stage for the first U.S. performance of his first solo acoustic tour. (The tour continues with sold-out shows at Berkeley's Zellerbach Auditorium tonight and Tuesday.)
But after nearly two hours of stripped-down Pearl Jam obscurities, living-room ukulele ditties, favorite covers, a quirky room-service anecdote, a beautiful experiment in vocal loops and several songs from Vedder's soundtrack to Sean Penn's "Into the Wild," Vedder launched into "Pulling Into Santa Cruz," a loving ode to Surf City penned that very afternoon in lieu of catching some waves.
"I can feel the lifting of my blues," he sang, "pulling into Santa Cruz."
Aww, Eddie, you shouldn't have.
It was a dream night for Pearl Jam fans, and an ultimately satisfying evening even for those who aren't a member of that particular flannel-clad tribe.
Vedder's young friend Liam Finn began the evening with a set that focused more on noise and mayhem and less on melodic song-craft than the one he delivered last year in Oakland before his father's band, Crowded House. We'd see more of him and his sidekick, singer E-J Barnes, later.
Vedder took center stage around 8:30, perched on a stool amid various electric and acoustic instruments, a Corona case on its side and a reel-to-reel tape player nearby. He was attended to by a roadie in a white lab coat, in keeping with the experimental vibe of the evening.
Vedder began with an assortment of lesser-known Pearl Jam tunes, starting with "Walking the Cow," before heading into five tunes from "Into the Wild." Next came a pair of unrecorded ukulele ditties - one sad, one upbeat - before a mix of Pearl Jam tunes and songs from James Taylor, Cat Stevens and Bob Dylan, plus a singalong on the Beatles' "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away."
Accompanying himself on guitar, the rock icon proved himself a capable finger-picker, though he often revved up the crowd by simply strumming chords with violent force like a juiced up Melissa Etheridge. The technique always got applause, and it worked fine on Pearl Jam barn-burners, but it detracted from numbers like the otherwise straightforward version of Taylor's "Millworker." For the "Into the Wild" soundtrack's "Rise," Vedder pulled out a mandolin, which he described as "kind of a bluegrass ukulele," explaining precisely his ham-handed approach to the instrument.
Though Vedder was understated and anything but the flashy rock star, the singer's star power did sometimes threaten to dwarf the intimacy of the music. For a version of Dylan's "Forever Young," Vedder had the lights turned low to try to put the focus simply on the lyrics. "I'm just trying to get a message to you," he said.
Vedder ended his 80-minute set with a powerful acoustic version of Pearl Jam's "Porch," then came back with Finn by his side for a set of encores that began with "Happy Birthday," dedicated in absentia to his PJ band-mate Mike McCready. That one was followed by a lovely Vedder/Finn duet on "Society," one of the best tunes from "Into the Wild" (composed by North Bay singer-songwriter Jerry Hannan). Next, Vedder donned a white lab coat and took a page from the Finn playbook by laying down a beautiful eight-bar vocal loop and wailing over top of it; the music continued as the curtains closed and Vedder took his "final" bows.
But he returned once more, for the aforementioned Santa Cruz song. The night ended with the whole company, including Finn on drums, performing a rousing version of "Hard Sun," the obscure '80s Canadian track that Vedder resurrected for "Into the Wild."
Guess what? This promising folksinger sounds good with a band, too.
Shay Quillen - squillen@mercurynews.com
Let's say knowledge is a tree, yeah.
It's growing up just like me.
It's growing up just like me.
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