Review: Pearl Jam performs an impassioned sold-out, celebratory concert in Camden

The crowd at the sold-out Freedom Mortgage Pavilion in Camden stayed on its feet for the entirety of the 2 ½ hour show on Wednesday night, but Pearl Jam began the evening sitting down.

It was a slow burn start for a band that’s mastered the art of creating drama by playing with a quiet, barely contained intensity. You know the room is going to eventually explode into collective catharsis. You just don’t know when.

In this case, some waiting was involved. After a 2 ½ year pandemic delay in getting to the Philadelphia region in support of their 11th album, Gigaton, which came out in March 2020, the band came on a half hour after its scheduled start time to accommodate late-arriving fans stuck in gridlock.

Eddie Vedder and bandmates — bassist Jeff Ament, guitarists Stone Gossard and Mike McCready, and drummer Matt Cameron, plus two auxiliary musicians — entered as Catpower’s “The Greatest” played over the sound system.

They eased two watery, ruminative deep cuts from the early 1990s - “Wash” and “Oceans” — before Vedder could wait no longer to address the band’s special relationship with Philadelphia.

“Good evening, Philly! Good evening Camden! Where the f—- are we?,” he asked. “I know it’s not the Spectrum, because we blew that place up. I know it’s not J.C. Dobbs, because there were 150 people there.”

» READ MORE: Pearl Jam talks about their top Philly moments, and why they’re releasing the video of their legendary ‘Ten’ concert now

(Pearl Jam played the final four shows at the storied South Philly arena before its demolition in 2009, and performed at the tiny South Street club in 1991 on tour for their debut album Ten, which went on to sell 13 million copies.)

Since those early days when combining punk disaffection with anthemic classic rock made them and Nirvana the biggest breakout band of the flannel-flying Pacific Northwest grunge era, Pearl Jam have consolidated a mass audience that has aged along with them, while bringing new generations into the fold.

The FMP crowd of 22,000 — the biggest, Vedder said, of the band’s current tour — was made up of fans in the same age range as the band, whose members are all in the mid-to late 50s, and younger.

Old heads with their adult children, and second generation fans with their own kids. The always earnest Vedder, who was in strong, sonorous voice all night wore a T-shirt with the logo of the Austin, Texas band Black Pumas, expressed appreciation. “After two years of isolation, two years of being divided, sequestered,” he said. “It feels great to see so many faces in one place.”

Loyalty has been earned with shrewd strategy. The band takes a page out of the Grateful Dead playbook, adapting the jam band improvisatory approach to a rugged, rock and roll and highly disciplined aesthetic.

McCready got extended showcases, including one with his instrument behind his head on “Alive.” Cameron didn’t solo, but got an introduction for the ages from Vedder: “We’ve lost some great ones. We’ve lost Neal Peart. We’ve lost Charlie Watts. We just lost Taylor Hawkins. Thank God we still have Matt ... Cameron!”

There is no fixed set list on a Pearl Jam tour. Many best loved songs get played - the Camden crowd got linchpins like “Even Flow,” “Corduroy” and “Animal,” the latter, from 1992′s Vs., being the one that wrecked the room when the band finally stood up.

But there are also unexpected twists, turns and covers that keep ‘em coming back for more.

On Wednesday, covers included Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” and an encore of Victoria Williams’ Neil Young-ish “Crazy Mary,” featured organ player Kenneth “Boom” Gaspar. That was followed shortly by the band’s trademark closer, Neil Young’s “Keep Rockin’ in The Free World.”

Subtle moments rewarded close attention. In one snippet, Vedder riffed on the version of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” recorded by Devo, the band Pearl Jam once dressed up as on Halloween in Philadelphia.

After swooning over the Philly area weather and a perfect 24 hours spent leading up to the show, he sang a sweet a cappella chorus of “Modern Girl” by riot-grrl band Sleater-Kinney: “My whole life,” he sang, “was like a picture of a sunny day.”

There were other cool Philly moments. Vedder dedicated one song to “one of the greatest humans I’ve ever met,” Sixers great Julius Erving, “the first to get superhuman air.” The title: “Given To Fly.”

Later, he said he woke from a dream Wednesday in which he saw “those steps Rocky runs up, where Jay-Z puts on his Made in the U.S.A festival.” (Pearl Jam headlined the first Made in America in 2012.)

» READ MORE: Looking ahead as Made in America ends

In the dream, the Philadelphia Museum of Art was replaced by a volcano. “I don’t know what it means. Dreams are weird. But I did ask Mike McCready to play this song.” What was it? “Gonna Fly Now”? Nope. Van Halen’s “Eruption.”

Before “Quick Escape” and “Retrograde,” two environmentally conscious songs from the solid, workmanlike Gigaton, Vedder talked about saving the planet. Later, he spoke about the November elections, with a QR code on video screens to assist people registering to vote. “Freedom is on the ballot,” he said. “And the most important freedom would be a woman’s right to choose.”

In both instances, he was greeted by applause, along with scattered naysayers like the dude next to me who bellowed: “Shut up and sing!”

The show peaked towards the end with “Not For You,” from 1994′s Vitalogy. It rode a ferocious groove and encapsulated the defiant Romanticism that still defines the band.

The song warned off cynics and exploiters - “This is not for you!” - as Vedder declared: “All that’s sacred comes from youth … I still remember, why don’t you?”

Decades down the road, a Pearl Jam show is a celebration of survival, an impassioned attempt to keep alive the rock and roll idealism that ignited the band and its fans all those years go. At least for one night.