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Cincinnati Review well-done ...
blacknapkins
Posts: 2,176
This is the first review I've read today and I like it enough to share it with the class ...
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060626/ENT/606260302
Pearl Jam still flies freak flag
Concert review
BY GIL KAUFMAN | ENQUIRER CONTRIBUTOR
All the hallmarks were there Saturday night during Pearl Jam's show at U.S. Bank Arena: the disco ball, the gratuitous guitar and drum solos, the long-haired, mumbly singer smoking and swigging from a wine bottle while making important sounding pronouncements, the obligatory audience-taking-over-the vocals for half a song and a lights-up, show-stopping rendition of a stadium classic by the Who. In some ways - most ways, really - it was arena rock 101.
But during 21/2 hours of mostly live-wire rock songs delivered with utter conviction, the last men left standing from the early 1990s grunge rock movement not only avoided aping clichés, they transcended them. Sixteen years into its iconoclastic career, Pearl Jam still thrills because its music is about that rarest of things in rock: pure emotion.
Say what you will about singer Eddie Vedder's sometimes-mocked martyr complex, but you can't deny the 41-year-old's seemingly limitless energy and deep respect for rock history. Wearing jeans and a vintage Who T-shirt, Vedder took a moment after an epic version of one of the early hits, "Even Flow" to allude to the 1979 Who tragedy that took place at the formerly named Riverfront Coliseum resulting in 11 deaths.
Tying it to his band's own tragedy, at Roskilde in Denmark in 2000, where nine fans were trampled to death, Vedder dedicated the meditative "Love Boat Captain" as a "little prayer for those who passed and all the survivors." It was a touching moment during a show that was filled with more fist-pumping than a political rally.
For a band with such a clear respect for history, Pearl Jam obliterated the timeline between such early, indelible hits as "Alive" and new anthems such as "World Wide Suicide" and "Life Wasted," a blistering punk cluster bomb from the recently released self-titled album. All three songs had the capacity crowd singing along as if each were a 15-year-old chestnut.
The band dipped into nearly every facet of its catalog, from such live staples as "Corduroy," to the intense "Green Disease," the Neil Young-like stomper "Not For You" and the ballad "Wishlist," which Vedder dedicated to a member of the band's "family," a 22-year-old Columbus fan who went missing last year.
After inserting a grunged up, warp speed snippet of the English Beat's ska classic "Save it for Later" into their hit "Better Man," and playing a searing version of "Alive," the band closed the show by bringing out Robert Pollard, the former leader of Dayton's Guided By Voices, who opened hours earlier with a set of his trademark British-inspired garage rock. Trading off on verses during a shambolic version of the Who's "Baba O'Riley" with the house lights blazing, the unlikely duo paid homage to their heroes and the departed ones the only way they know how, by celebrating life.
E-mail gilkco@aol.com
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060626/ENT/606260302
Pearl Jam still flies freak flag
Concert review
BY GIL KAUFMAN | ENQUIRER CONTRIBUTOR
All the hallmarks were there Saturday night during Pearl Jam's show at U.S. Bank Arena: the disco ball, the gratuitous guitar and drum solos, the long-haired, mumbly singer smoking and swigging from a wine bottle while making important sounding pronouncements, the obligatory audience-taking-over-the vocals for half a song and a lights-up, show-stopping rendition of a stadium classic by the Who. In some ways - most ways, really - it was arena rock 101.
But during 21/2 hours of mostly live-wire rock songs delivered with utter conviction, the last men left standing from the early 1990s grunge rock movement not only avoided aping clichés, they transcended them. Sixteen years into its iconoclastic career, Pearl Jam still thrills because its music is about that rarest of things in rock: pure emotion.
Say what you will about singer Eddie Vedder's sometimes-mocked martyr complex, but you can't deny the 41-year-old's seemingly limitless energy and deep respect for rock history. Wearing jeans and a vintage Who T-shirt, Vedder took a moment after an epic version of one of the early hits, "Even Flow" to allude to the 1979 Who tragedy that took place at the formerly named Riverfront Coliseum resulting in 11 deaths.
Tying it to his band's own tragedy, at Roskilde in Denmark in 2000, where nine fans were trampled to death, Vedder dedicated the meditative "Love Boat Captain" as a "little prayer for those who passed and all the survivors." It was a touching moment during a show that was filled with more fist-pumping than a political rally.
For a band with such a clear respect for history, Pearl Jam obliterated the timeline between such early, indelible hits as "Alive" and new anthems such as "World Wide Suicide" and "Life Wasted," a blistering punk cluster bomb from the recently released self-titled album. All three songs had the capacity crowd singing along as if each were a 15-year-old chestnut.
The band dipped into nearly every facet of its catalog, from such live staples as "Corduroy," to the intense "Green Disease," the Neil Young-like stomper "Not For You" and the ballad "Wishlist," which Vedder dedicated to a member of the band's "family," a 22-year-old Columbus fan who went missing last year.
After inserting a grunged up, warp speed snippet of the English Beat's ska classic "Save it for Later" into their hit "Better Man," and playing a searing version of "Alive," the band closed the show by bringing out Robert Pollard, the former leader of Dayton's Guided By Voices, who opened hours earlier with a set of his trademark British-inspired garage rock. Trading off on verses during a shambolic version of the Who's "Baba O'Riley" with the house lights blazing, the unlikely duo paid homage to their heroes and the departed ones the only way they know how, by celebrating life.
E-mail gilkco@aol.com
"Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is the best."
~ FZ ~
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is the best."
~ FZ ~
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
--"We’re taking pills to get along with life… the pills are YIELD and PJ’s music. Then we create words to call our own = our analysis of YIELD." - YIH
I would, but still have trouble talking. Is that normal?? I've never gone this long after a show and still have trouble with my voice. OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
i'm still rockin' the drag queen voice today but i've had worse postshow hoarseness.
feel better.
Should we send the band a bunch of postcards asking them to play Cincy again?
--"We’re taking pills to get along with life… the pills are YIELD and PJ’s music. Then we create words to call our own = our analysis of YIELD." - YIH
...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Set:
http://flickr.com/photos/efaris/sets/72157594177654351/
Slideshow:
http://flickr.com/photos/efaris/sets/72157594177654351/show
- Eric
sham·bol·ic Audio pronunciation of "shambolic" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (shm-blk) adj. Chiefly British Slang
Disorderly or chaotic: “ [The country's] transportation system is in a shambolic state” (London Sunday Times).
R.i.p. My Dad - May 28, 2007
R.i.p. Black Tail (cat) - Sept. 20, 2008