Review #5: Montreal

I'm officially way behind with my show reviews...I mean, Montreal was what, ten days ago already? Just amazing how times flies - it's been almost a week since my own personal mini tour ended! Pearl Jam wraps up its Canadian tour tonight in St. John's, NF (the second of two nights in Newfoundland...go figure), so I'm making a point of trying to get at least two more reviews up by the end of the day. We'll see if today's slate of NFL games will allow for it to happen.

Anyway. Following Pearl Jam all the way to Montreal probably wasn't the smartest idea in the world...I mean, when I booked my tickets back in late April I assumed I'd be attending teacher's college in the fall. When the show rolled around, I was - at least technically speaking - but really, when you consider that I once drove twenty-five hours to see Pearl Jam there really wasn't any way I'd be missing them in a city six hours away...especially since Montreal is one of my favourite cities in the entire world. Sherkin and I pulled into town around mid-afternoon, proceeded to miss the Rue de la Montagne exit and ended up taking an hour-long detour. I know I complain a lot about Toronto drive...but really, after seeing how people operate in motor vehicles in Montreal I should be a lot more grateful.

I'd seen Pearl Jam in Montreal twice previously. The 2000 show was probably the most disappointing Pearl Jam concert I've ever seen: the setlist was sleepy, the band was still ironing out a lot of kinks (it was the first stop on the second leg of their North American tour) and the audience was way lame. But the 2003 show utterly redeemed it: bizzare setlist, incredible energy from the band and a vociferous audience made it an underrated masterpiece from a tour that was full of classic gigs. On this particular tour, Montreal was the closest stop to a whole slew of Pearl Jam fan meccas including New York, Philadelphia and Boston. If nothing else, we knew the audience would be jacked. Tonight's Pearl Jam virgin was my cousin Cameron. He and I had seen, like, everything together; honestly, if you run down a list of all the events I've been to in my life there's about a 50/50 chance that Cam was there with me. Yet somehow, he hadn't seen Pearl Jam.

So. Our seats tonight were about twenty-five rows away from the stage and right underneath the Bell Centre's scoreclock. At 7:30pm Ed strolled on stage with acoustic guitar in hand...and proceeded to play "Don't Be Shy" by Cat Stevens, probably the #1 song on my preset wishlist (I'd missed it before the first Boston show in 2004). Sleater-Kinney then followed with what was easily their best gig of the tour. For one, it featured Matt Cameron's hilarious cameo on "One Beat". For another, it featured a raging cover of the Danzig song "Mother" with none other than Mr. Michael McCreedy lending a hand on guitar...and for another, it went from there straight into "Dig Me Out", which brought their set to a brilliant climax. The stage, then, was set.

Pearl Jam opened with "Release" - no surprises there, since it hadn't opened a show since Western Canada. The sing-a-long was, as usual, spine-tingling...honestly, is there a better opening song in all of the Pearl Jam catalogue than "Release"? From there, it was straight into a series of skull-crushers (including "Animal" for a fifth time in five shows); the band was on fire, the audience was loud - the signs were all pointing towards another classic night in Montreal. And then Ed announced that tonight marked the one year anniversary of Johnny Ramone's death, and Pearl Jam went into its tired-sounding cover of the Ramones' "I Believe in Miracles". (Can someone please explain this to me? Ed's version with Zeke is about ten times better than Pearl Jam's...why do they insist on slowing it down so much?) For the rest of the set, the momentum was all over the place. I'm not going to criticize Ed or anybody else for deliberately loading the setlist with tribute songs - a good five or six numbers were preceeded with mentions of the late Ramone - but from a purely objective standpoint, there was a serious lack of energy to the evening's proceedings. Given the audience on hand, this was somewhat surprising.

Again, I don't want to criticize - I'm just sayin'. Also, am I the only one who doesn't know what to think about "Porch"? I've just never really gotten this song, ya know? I dislike the album version (it sounds woefully unfinished, like the band had a great idea and then didn't know where to go with it), I've disliked about 50% of the live versions I've heard...I mean, I've heard "Porch" open a show (Hamilton), close a show (Minneapolis '98), played in the middle of a seventeen-song encore (State College) and still have no idea where it fits. But anyway: tonight, it was one of those versions that didn't quite catch fire, and after the sleepy middle portion of the set, a balls-to-the-wall set closer was definitely in order. "Porch" just kind of limped to the finish.

Which didn't stop them from trying. Ed returned for the encore alone and offered up a gorgeous version of "Trouble" (two Cat Stevens songs in one night!), before the rest of the band rejoined him and proceeded to play..."Man of the Hour". It was here that the show, for at least a few minutes, entered rarified territory - at least as far as Cameron and I were concerned. Earlier this summer our grandfather passed away; we ended up delivering a eulogy together at the funeral, which I capped off with a verse from "Man of the Hour". As the song started, Cam leaned over to me and said, "This is the song from the speech, isn't it?" (he'd never heard it before). I nodded, and together we shared a quiet moment. It was really, really nice to hear it together. And for fear of becoming overtly sentimental, this was followed by fucking "Last Kiss" ("one of Johnny's favourites," according to Ed, so I won't be too critical) and a recapitulation of "Harvest Moon", which brought things back down a notch. "Crazy Mary" followed (brilliant version tonight, with Mike and Boom initiating a call-and-response between each other's instruments) before a staggering "Alive" brought the first encore to a close. There: much better.

The second encore, meanwhile, opened with "Whipping" ("Whipping"!), kicked ass and took names with "Down" and an oddly-placed "Blood", brought out the cigarette lighters for "Black" (great version)...and then "Baba O'Riley". Pearl Jam's version of "Baba O'Riley" is legendary amongst fans for a very good reason - but tonight, it just didn't explode like it normally does. Rather, it sounded perfunctory; considering some of the versions I've heard in the past, it was therefore doubly disappointing. "Ledbetter" finished things off, with the crowd screaming itself horse and McCreedy offering a sweet little flouirsh to the ontro - and it's over.

Okay: so in the end, the show was somewhat redeemed. And again, I'm not about to criticize the band for its song selection this evening...I mean, Ed seemed like he was genuinely struggling to get through parts of the show. From a purely objective standpoint, however, this wasn't the best of what Pearl Jam has to offer; while there was no faulting the actual playing, the show didn't have the manic energy of the band's very best displays. Or maybe I'm being unnecessarily hard...I mean, Cam walked out of the show acting like he'd just witnessed the second coming. I guess the point is this: taken as a single concert, Montreal was really frigging good, but in light of the previous three nights it wasn't quite up to scratch. Again, that's fine: I'm not going to be too critical of Pearl Jam on what was obviously a very difficult night for the band. (Johnny Ramone's death wasn't the only thing weighing heavily on their minds: before "Baba" Ed announced that a good friend of Matt's had recently died, and right before Matt quit the stage he uttered "Thanks Piggy" into the mic.)

Afterwards, Sherkin, Cameron and I retired to an Irish pub near Concordia University, downed a few overpriced pints (honestly, $18 for two pints and a tip?) and retired to Cameron's apartment - where I proceeded to swallow hard, open up Hotmail and fire off four individual E-mails to my instructors informing them I wouldn't be coming back to the following week. Sleep took place on a couch...but honestly, given how exhausted I was I probably could have slept on a hardwood floor and been equally comfortable. No matter my qualms with tonight's show, it's really freaking hard to find fault with the Montreal experience as a whole...and when it includes a Pearl Jam concert, it seems pointless to quibble at all.