Eddie Vedder, 57, leader of Pearl Jam, performs at the Imola racetrack in an evening of pure rock’n’roll. Voice still crystal clear and a stage dominated far and wide
“In 55 countries of the world abortion is guaranteed, in America no, women must decide to be able to raise their children”. The absolute and anti-historical inadequacy of the decision of the American Supreme Court also bounces here, at the Imola racetrack that today instead of Ferraris and the like sees another kind of custom-built cars: i Pearl Jam by Eddie Vedder that if he has to say what he thinks of his country, he never exempts himself, yesterday as today. It is the topical moment of a very successful concert, already postponed twice due to Covid: Eddie and his are the last Mohicans of what was the grunge, last, revolutionary, cry of rock, now thirty years ago. And indeed the sixty thousand gathered on the Formula One tracks are the children of that revolution, then kids now forty, huddled around their idol. Like Materazzi, a frequent visitor to this kind of show, after leaving the football fields. Well, Eddie shows up at 57, still with his shirt open, like then, over his shirt. But what matters most is that Vedder, probably one of the last, great, frontmen, is perfectly preserved. And in spirit, I always fought. And in the performance, the voice still crystal clear and a stage dominated far and wide. And he’s not the only one: Mike McCready e Stone Gossard, however blanched, they engage in guitar battles with devastating distortions and perfect solos. Complete the rhythm section always at the pace of the drummer Matt Cameron and Jeff Ament.
–
For what it is a group of true friends unlike other dinosaurs looking for easy money in old age. The public knows it: Eddie will thank him several times as well as worrying several times about the fate, in turn, of a child in trouble in the front rows, of another gentleman who has been ill or of the beer seller crushed by the crowd. But above all, Eddie gratifies him with a perfect lineup: over a third of the 23 songs come from the first threeequally revolutionary, albums, Ten, Vs e Vitalogy. Like the start with a punk bang by Corduroy or the subsequent “Even Flow” with the public immediately going crazy. And the subsequent snapshots, beautiful and terrifying, of the American province, the shy old ladies of Elderly woman behind a counter in a small town or the killer kids of Jeremy, another vivid testimony of this band always in tune with the often bitter events of their country. As in the anti-abortion tirade above that precedes Daughter, the story of a father who should never have been a father.
–
Meanwhile, the show gives very few concessions to the last, for some divisive, album Gigaton
(too experimental, they say, with its electronics ”) and runs towards the final with the generational Black e Alive, with Eddie always in connection with the public (to whom he gives various pearls in Italian) and McCready unstoppable in his rides. Finally, after two generous hours and a half, with the epic Yellow Ledbetter: “Take care of yourself,” says Eddie. You too, the audience replies as they leave, there is still, desperately, a need for rock’n’roll.
–
June 26, 2022 (change June 26, 2022 | 00:19)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
–
—
