4. Pearl Jam
THE O2 ARENA
18 AUGUST 2009
Eddie Vedder is on stage tonight gripping a half-drunk bottle of wine like it’s the last life jacket on the Titanic. He’s growling his way through Pearl Jam’s greatest hits with so much gravel in his voice, a couple of Irish navvies in the crowd were eyeing him up for a new driveway. It's primal. It’s cathartic. It’s a man howling at the moon, with a cheeky cabernet.
And let’s not understate the value here: two encores. Two. The man’s giving us Springsteen levels of return on investment, without the burden of ten-minute monologues about New Jersey.
Now, I’ll admit it: I once shelled out good money for the full Grunge Heritage Trail™ in Seattle. The whole tragic rock-and-roll sightseeing shebang. I saw the garages, the dive bars, the sticky-floored cubbyholes where Vedder and his merry crew birthed Ten into the world. I stood reverently in a venue so small you couldn’t swing a snare drum, and imagined 1991-era Eddie, all sinew and screams, leaping from rafters into a mosh pit of sweaty flannel.
But don’t let nostalgia fool you, stadium Vedder is no slouch and can still bring the house down. Tonight, he’s older, sure, but no less feral. Like a well-aged whiskey with a punch that still rearranges your teeth. The band’s firing on all cylinders, punching out the classics with the kind of thunder that makes your sternum vibrate. When they tear into “Black”, the crowd becomes one big, emotional soup, eyes misty, voices cracking, grown men fighting back years of repressed emotion.
And then, the final encore: “Better Man”. Twenty thousand people hoist their phones skyward, lighters rebranded for the digital age. The place glows. The chorus swells. Strangers link arms. Some weep. And yes, I might have cried, but only because someone behind me was cutting onions. With a katana.
Tonight wasn’t just a gig; it was a full-body exorcism. An operatic howl into the void, soaked in wine, memory, and very loud guitars. And as the final note echoes off the stadium rafters and Eddie lifts that bottle one last time, we are all reminded: the man may have mellowed, but he still sings like the world’s ending.