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Home > Austin Music Source > Archives > 2009 > October > 05 > Entry
Outtakes from Pearl Jam’s ACL taping
Now that I’ve gotten a much-needed shower and some sleep, I thought it’d be worth revisiting some of the more candid and revealing moments from Pearl Jam’s flat-out incredible Austin City Limits taping on Saturday night. The episode airs Nov. 21 and looks to be a whole hour of Pearl Jam, but since they played for two hours a lot of the more colorful asides and such probably won’t make it to air.
The highlights, in no particular order:
The band invited several injured military veterans from the Wounded Warrior Project of San Antonio to the taping. At the start of the first encore, singer Eddie Vedder came out to do a solo take on “Lukin” (more on that in a second) but forgot a guitar pick, so he jokingly asked a nearby audience member for one of the picks guitarist Stone Gossard had passed out at the close of the first set. At this, one of several veterans in the audience with prosthetic legs shouted to Vedder, “I’ll trade you my leg for a pick!”, prompting an “are you serious?” look from Vedder. A moment later the singer was bounding across the stage, leg in hand, while gathering up a guitar pick and drum sticks from Matt Cameron’s drum kit to give to the soldier. Vedder then autographed the prosthetic and two others before telling the rest of the veterans he’d be back after the show to sign anything they wanted. A truly endearing and cool exchange that just can’t happen in any other performing environment.
As mentioned in the review of the show, guitarist Mike McCready closed the night by transitioning from the band’s cover of Victoria Williams’ “Crazy Mary” to going solo on a crackling, feedback-drenched playing of “The Star Spangled Banner.” Couple that with Vedder recounting his five-year-old daughter making him recite the Pledge of Allegiance with him over the phone before a recent show and it’s hard to believe that during the George Bush presidency this band was assailing the direction of the country with the type of vitriol that would’ve gotten it blacklisted during the Joe McCarthy years.
Back to “Lukin”: so this barely one minute ball of fury has always been one of the weirder bits in the band’s canon, and definitely wasn’t up for consideration by most as a tune Vedder would pull out to do pretty much solo at a taping of one of the most hallowed music programs in history. But there it was like a sore thumb, with Vedder bringing a string quartet led by Austin’s Will Taylor back out to back him up, with the instructions that the tune was in E and the string players should just crank out whatever they thought sounded good. “Is that E minor or major?” one of the players asked, at which point Vedder laughed and admitted he wasn’t sure. “I don’t even know what a third is. You’re blowing my cover now.” Not that it mattered much. Vedder abused his acoustic guitar while the strings did their best to be heard above the din. One of those head-scratching moments the band does mostly just to keep itself and audiences from getting bored.
The weirdo cover requirement got met with a set-opening take on Austin native Daniel Johnston’s “Walking The Cow” (featuring only Vedder and bassist Jeff Ament) and “Driven To Tears” by The Police, a nearly 30-year-old political lament beefed up with three guitars. Vedder said he hoped the latter song will lose its social significance some day, which might sound like an ineloquent putdown but was more a lament that not a lot has changed since the Reagan years.
Recording equipment was obviously barred from the premises for audience members so I can’t do justice to the rambling monologue Vedder delivered prior to “Do The Evolution” with anything close to 100 percent accuracy. I just know it started with something about the need for human compassion, and how that’s getting lost as mankind develops technologically, and how maybe we should find a way to measure how well we look out for one another instead of using yard sticks like GDP or something, and how… well, you get the idea. After a couple minutes Vedder trailed off and admitted “… I guess I’m not really going anywhere in particular with this” before finally saying “It’s evolution, baby” and kicking off one of the band’s few enduring mid-period rockers. There’s a reason the guy’s a singer and not an orator. Thankfully, he does the first very, very, very well.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: ACL 2009: Saturday, ACL Festival 2009, Music
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By cjl
October 5, 2009 9:58 AM | Link to this
I forgot all about the ankle deep mud when Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder appeared on the stage. They still ROCK and Eddie is still amazing after all these years!!!!!!!!!!! I loved it and what a fantastic close to an always amazing show (despite the rains and swamplike conditions)
By jmdview
October 5, 2009 1:02 PM | Link to this
Chad - I agree. It was an incredible experience. You forgot to mention that McCready performed with a Les Paul Gibson 50th Anniversary guitar and, after the song, autographed it and gave it to one of the Wounded Warriors. It was really cool!