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Article - Toronto Star - "Just Eddie is just fine"
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Just Eddie is just fine
GREG QUILL
Toronto Star
14 August 2008
The Toronto Star
ONT
E03
Maybe Eddie Vedder knew what he was in for Tuesday night at Massey Hall - the forbearance of the front man for Seattle grunge rock band Pearl Jam over a relentless barrage of shouted requests and outbreaks of "Ed-die! Ed-die!" was friendly and formidable - but it took the audience, packed to the rafters and Pearl Jam freaks every one, half the show to figure out it had nothing to do with rock 'n' roll.
This performance, the fifth in an eight-city solo tour that began in Boston on Aug. 1, was more like an unplugged concert in an apparent replica of Vedder's home studio. It had a pair of ancient PA monitors upstage, an amplified stomp board and a small suitcase full of lyrics at the seated singer's feet, a desk supporting a lamp and old analogue tape recorder, and an assembly of stringed instruments (electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, ukulele) tended meticulously by a man in a white coat.
While the sensibility was definitely rock-fuelled, with Vedder sometimes lashing and thrashing his guitars with Townshend-inspired fury, the execution and content approached folk territory.
The chatty 90-minute set was remarkable less for the pared-down, rearranged Pearl Jam songs ("Sometimes," "I Am Mine," "Porch," among others) and the movie soundtrack vignettes (from Into the Wild; Body of War; I Am Sam) for which Vedder has earned acclaim and awards in recent years, than for the vintage covers the singer pulled seemingly at random out of thin air.
There was a powerful anti-Bush-oriented version of Phil Ochs' "Here's to the State of Mississippi"; Cat Stevens's "Trouble"; John Lennon's "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"; Tom Waits' "Picture in a Frame"; James Taylor's "Millworker" and - by way of tribute to Massey Hall, on whose exterior he once unwittingly urinated, he told the audience in one of several hilarious asides - Neil Young's "Long May You Run."
To his credit, Vedder seemed unfazed by the crowd's restlessness for the first half-hour of the show, though it took a full five minutes for him to calm them down after his entrance to a full-throated standing ovation. His banter was intimate and inclusive, devoid of rock-star pretensions, and the musical work - alternating between hearty strumming and elegant picking, with a soupcon of special effects - was earnest and compelling, his voice soulful and passionate.
One-man rock band Liam Finn, with help from singer and percussionist Eliza-Jane Barnes and an astonishing array of special effects and tape loops, was a frenetic and fascinating opener, in tune with the program's DIY aesthetic.
Just Eddie is just fine
GREG QUILL
Toronto Star
14 August 2008
The Toronto Star
ONT
E03
Maybe Eddie Vedder knew what he was in for Tuesday night at Massey Hall - the forbearance of the front man for Seattle grunge rock band Pearl Jam over a relentless barrage of shouted requests and outbreaks of "Ed-die! Ed-die!" was friendly and formidable - but it took the audience, packed to the rafters and Pearl Jam freaks every one, half the show to figure out it had nothing to do with rock 'n' roll.
This performance, the fifth in an eight-city solo tour that began in Boston on Aug. 1, was more like an unplugged concert in an apparent replica of Vedder's home studio. It had a pair of ancient PA monitors upstage, an amplified stomp board and a small suitcase full of lyrics at the seated singer's feet, a desk supporting a lamp and old analogue tape recorder, and an assembly of stringed instruments (electric and acoustic guitars, mandolin, ukulele) tended meticulously by a man in a white coat.
While the sensibility was definitely rock-fuelled, with Vedder sometimes lashing and thrashing his guitars with Townshend-inspired fury, the execution and content approached folk territory.
The chatty 90-minute set was remarkable less for the pared-down, rearranged Pearl Jam songs ("Sometimes," "I Am Mine," "Porch," among others) and the movie soundtrack vignettes (from Into the Wild; Body of War; I Am Sam) for which Vedder has earned acclaim and awards in recent years, than for the vintage covers the singer pulled seemingly at random out of thin air.
There was a powerful anti-Bush-oriented version of Phil Ochs' "Here's to the State of Mississippi"; Cat Stevens's "Trouble"; John Lennon's "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away"; Tom Waits' "Picture in a Frame"; James Taylor's "Millworker" and - by way of tribute to Massey Hall, on whose exterior he once unwittingly urinated, he told the audience in one of several hilarious asides - Neil Young's "Long May You Run."
To his credit, Vedder seemed unfazed by the crowd's restlessness for the first half-hour of the show, though it took a full five minutes for him to calm them down after his entrance to a full-throated standing ovation. His banter was intimate and inclusive, devoid of rock-star pretensions, and the musical work - alternating between hearty strumming and elegant picking, with a soupcon of special effects - was earnest and compelling, his voice soulful and passionate.
One-man rock band Liam Finn, with help from singer and percussionist Eliza-Jane Barnes and an astonishing array of special effects and tape loops, was a frenetic and fascinating opener, in tune with the program's DIY aesthetic.
Up here so high I start to shake, Up here so high the sky I scrape, I've no fear but for falling down, So look out below I am falling now, Falling down,...not staying down, Could’ve held me up, rather tear me down, Drown in the river
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Boston 4/94; Phoenix 9/95; Hartford 9/98; Mansfield 8/00; Albany 4/03; Mansfield 7/03; Albany 5/06; Boston 5/06; London UK 6/07; Bonaroo 6/08; Hartford 6/08; Mansfield 6/08; Chicago 8/09; Philly 10/30/09 and 10/31/09
EV: 2008: 4/15, 4/16, 8/1, 8/2, 8/9, 8/10. 2009: 6/8, 6/9