Forgoing mask smashing and verbal bashing, Eddie Vedder found a more subtle way to mark the president's 60th birthday last Thursday night. "Some folks are born silver spoon in hand / Lord, don't they help themselves," Pearl Jam's frontman sneered as his band blazed through Creedence Clearwater Revival's anti-privilege anthem "Fortunate Son" for the penultimate number of its nine-song double-encore.
Apart from that cover, a pre-show solo piece from Vedder and blocks of empty, top-tier seats at the reported sellout, the quintet's Las Vegas stopover unfolded pretty much as expected. Which, for Pearl Jam, is another way of saying the two-hour, 15-minute set was predictably solid, satisfying to the group's rapturous fan base and well worth its $51 tag in a concert era of heightened prices and lowered expectations.
Even on a night when a cig-smoking, wine-swigging Vedder complained of a rough throat—a condition otherwise detectable only in the latter stages—Pearl Jam delivered its usual high-energy performance, anchored by dependable rhythm duo Jeff Ament and Matt Cameron and punctuated by guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard. The band weaved together a predictably unpredictable set list: seven cuts from its self-titled new album, a handful of radio staples and a sprinkling of the deep cuts and rarities ("Rats," "Garden," Elvis Presley's "Little Sister") that keep PJ zealots glued to online forums for real-time updates.
When Pearl Jam deviated from the script, however, the results were either ragged (Cameron's stock drum solo during an overly extended "Even Flow") or downright frightening (a vaudevillian detour in "Better Man" by touring pianist Boom Gaspar). Even Vedder's typically magnetic vocal side trips meandered aimlessly near the conclusions of "Daughter," "Black" and show capper "Porch."
Experimentation should have been left to support act Sonic Youth, which has spent 25 years contrasting disquieting cacophony with civilized melody. Alas, constrained to a 45-minute slot, the openers focused on the latter, plucking eight of nine tunes from latest disc Rather Ripped and stepping back from the noise precipice every time it seemed they might deafen Pearl Jam's thoroughly confused audience.