Leeds request: please play Fugazi's Suggestion: tale part 2
milenaferrante
Posts: 21
Trieste showed once more what makes PJ working: today they are at their best when they enter the punk territory. In a way the show was perfectly mirrorring the city: with no anticipation apart from the no-drinks declaration and despite a sky clear evening we were into a thunder blast. As all of you I have listened to tons of versions of Animal but the one in Trieste was self explanatory: Jeff, Mike and Stone acted as they had studied Johnny Thunders’ bible by heart. They vomited Why Go, Corduroy, Leatherman and others with glacial, monolithic fury. It’s not you couldn’t distinguish each instrument part but it was more of a compact assault without any self indulgence. Mike’s solos are proceeding in the path they took in later years: concise, meaningful instead of showman-like. Loved them. Stone is operating in the shadow. Lately it seems he has chosen to stay in the background: he reminds me of a sort of Doctor Faustus concocting his magic potions, who is always very aware of what he needs to do to keep the band on the right path (a part which is very similar to the one Jonny Greenwood has in Radiohead). He was and he still is where the Pearl Jam sound comes from: rhytmically conscious, not allowing the band to deviate from the straight line.
Trieste had a lot more than that. It was a small compendium of a 20 years walk, sipping from history.
But let’s go back into Deep. I remember very well the show at Fairfax Patriot Center of April 8, 1994. Listened to it tons of times and read tons of times the article by Allan Jones in the now defunct Melody Maker at those times. I remember the pictures and the text as if they were a tattoo on my mind. Vedder was saying that he might even think about stopping playing with the band. You could get surprised if you see how Trieste’s setlist mirrors the one of that show. You can tell me that’s somewhat a coincidence since that setlist was common at the time, but it is not today.
It’s been exactly 20 years since Kurt Cobain’s death announcement that day, although it almost went unnoticed. It’s completely another world now, and finding a new Cobain these days would be almost impossible, but Trieste’s show was marked by such a creeping anxiety and urgency that you couldn’t help not thinking about it. It was not in any way alike the San Siro celebration show, it was the thoughtful and compelling short story about desperate human beings on the edge of some breaking decisions. I don’t know and I don’t think Pearl Jam knew they were playing in a stadium only a few metres away of a former nazi concentration camp, the Risiera di San Sabba. That makes it even more real since I feel death was as an invisible rope hanging on every single second of music, any broken inflexion of the voice (and there were many).
When Pearl Jam started Chloe Dancer-Crown of Thorns (something they have played, so the records say, only 25 times in a 22-years career) they were closing the circle of a show which left all of us going back to memories of people who were not there to celebrate. There was a man in the first row franctically waving his hands and pointing out at his Mother Love Bone t-shirt and screaming “thank you” with fists in the air on the big screen. That was a sign which hailed for a community which was still there, although maybe scattered in every direction.
While they were playing I was thinking about that video of Andy Wood with that incredible voice blatantly defying life, even if he knew that “it is what you make it”. There is nothing realistic in what I am saying and I know that it is only a feeling I had and I am probably wrong but, if you were there, it could not have been more real. Before Come back, Eddie takes care to mention in Italian that “I lost my best friend last week and I was with him when he made his last breath, it is a very hard time for me, I am very sad, his name was Johnny Vedder and can we say his name all together one last time before his spirit flies away?” See? Luckily enough, later on, Eddie urged us not to be too sad…look at the moon, at the oceans, at the sky, at music and don’t be so sad….
Where I was, the audience was mesmerized. As someone has said somewhere else, when Pearl Jam dug deeply into the antique repertoire, the one only “the chosen few” probably know about, no-one moved. During Let me sleep (the 3rd ever performance of the song!) with Eddie a bit ironically mentioning Christmas’ time in the middle of summer, people sat or stood still like robot-like characters in an Orwellian novel. Don’t know if it was because they simply didn’t know what the hell it was about or because they got completely lost in the songs, surprised they were taken out of the hat on purpose at that, rather unimportant, show. Had Pearl Jam lost their fan base, were there almost all new people unaware of history? It they were, Trieste’s show was one of the most historical ones I’ve ever got to hear.
History is at the heart of this band and you cannot do without. When they started Rearviewmirror I wondered if you could really dig THE SONG (or THE SONGS) if you don’t know anything about the words. Did those people around me know about the story? Could you really get into it without knowing? Probably not. If am to mention one and only real truth about Pearl Jam is that they never fake on Rearviewmirror. You can choose any bootleg at random among the endless list and you know for sure that Rearviewmirror will be there to bring you into getting to know the band at unparalleled heights. It was even more evident in Trieste. Rearviewmirror was still there, into that deep, dark territory that, while the guitars’ wall of sound raises as a big ocean wave, always leaves some faith for resurrection. We all know and will keep knowing. Pearl Jam is truer than ever and we have been lucky enough to be a part of the story. Yes…the lucky ones…
Trieste had a lot more than that. It was a small compendium of a 20 years walk, sipping from history.
But let’s go back into Deep. I remember very well the show at Fairfax Patriot Center of April 8, 1994. Listened to it tons of times and read tons of times the article by Allan Jones in the now defunct Melody Maker at those times. I remember the pictures and the text as if they were a tattoo on my mind. Vedder was saying that he might even think about stopping playing with the band. You could get surprised if you see how Trieste’s setlist mirrors the one of that show. You can tell me that’s somewhat a coincidence since that setlist was common at the time, but it is not today.
It’s been exactly 20 years since Kurt Cobain’s death announcement that day, although it almost went unnoticed. It’s completely another world now, and finding a new Cobain these days would be almost impossible, but Trieste’s show was marked by such a creeping anxiety and urgency that you couldn’t help not thinking about it. It was not in any way alike the San Siro celebration show, it was the thoughtful and compelling short story about desperate human beings on the edge of some breaking decisions. I don’t know and I don’t think Pearl Jam knew they were playing in a stadium only a few metres away of a former nazi concentration camp, the Risiera di San Sabba. That makes it even more real since I feel death was as an invisible rope hanging on every single second of music, any broken inflexion of the voice (and there were many).
When Pearl Jam started Chloe Dancer-Crown of Thorns (something they have played, so the records say, only 25 times in a 22-years career) they were closing the circle of a show which left all of us going back to memories of people who were not there to celebrate. There was a man in the first row franctically waving his hands and pointing out at his Mother Love Bone t-shirt and screaming “thank you” with fists in the air on the big screen. That was a sign which hailed for a community which was still there, although maybe scattered in every direction.
While they were playing I was thinking about that video of Andy Wood with that incredible voice blatantly defying life, even if he knew that “it is what you make it”. There is nothing realistic in what I am saying and I know that it is only a feeling I had and I am probably wrong but, if you were there, it could not have been more real. Before Come back, Eddie takes care to mention in Italian that “I lost my best friend last week and I was with him when he made his last breath, it is a very hard time for me, I am very sad, his name was Johnny Vedder and can we say his name all together one last time before his spirit flies away?” See? Luckily enough, later on, Eddie urged us not to be too sad…look at the moon, at the oceans, at the sky, at music and don’t be so sad….
Where I was, the audience was mesmerized. As someone has said somewhere else, when Pearl Jam dug deeply into the antique repertoire, the one only “the chosen few” probably know about, no-one moved. During Let me sleep (the 3rd ever performance of the song!) with Eddie a bit ironically mentioning Christmas’ time in the middle of summer, people sat or stood still like robot-like characters in an Orwellian novel. Don’t know if it was because they simply didn’t know what the hell it was about or because they got completely lost in the songs, surprised they were taken out of the hat on purpose at that, rather unimportant, show. Had Pearl Jam lost their fan base, were there almost all new people unaware of history? It they were, Trieste’s show was one of the most historical ones I’ve ever got to hear.
History is at the heart of this band and you cannot do without. When they started Rearviewmirror I wondered if you could really dig THE SONG (or THE SONGS) if you don’t know anything about the words. Did those people around me know about the story? Could you really get into it without knowing? Probably not. If am to mention one and only real truth about Pearl Jam is that they never fake on Rearviewmirror. You can choose any bootleg at random among the endless list and you know for sure that Rearviewmirror will be there to bring you into getting to know the band at unparalleled heights. It was even more evident in Trieste. Rearviewmirror was still there, into that deep, dark territory that, while the guitars’ wall of sound raises as a big ocean wave, always leaves some faith for resurrection. We all know and will keep knowing. Pearl Jam is truer than ever and we have been lucky enough to be a part of the story. Yes…the lucky ones…
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