Review: Pearl Jam finally conquers Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena. Give them the keys

Concert review

A controlled squall of primordial guitar feedback announced their arrival. As the large curtain covering a massive projection screen drew, the members of Pearl Jam filed on stage, their silhouettes cast onto a crescent of light — like the moon rising above a dark horizon — on the massive backdrop.

For all the excitement that comes with a — what, twice-a-decade? — Seattle Pearl Jam show, a sense of temporary calm washed over the virtually sold-out Climate Pledge Arena on Tuesday during the opening verse of “Release” — a fan favorite off their debut album full of fan favorites. It wouldn’t last. As the song came into bloom, an Eddie Vedder-shaped shadow led what felt like a secular hymnal consecrating the proceedings.

“I’ll ride the wave,” he sang, pausing a half-beat longer like an archer drawing his bow. “Where it, takes meeeeeee.” That signature quivering voice shot to the back of the arena like a gold-tipped arrow exploding in a full-throated singalong. Normally, a band works its way up to the goosebump moments, but why waste time with pleasantries when we’re all neighbors here, right?

“Well, look at us, we’re home,” Vedder said wryly after that opening cleanse.

Yes, the boys are back in town this week, capping the first leg of their Dark Matter World Tour with a pair of Climate Pledge Arena shows, which continue Thursday. Ask any of the Seattleites or Seattleites-for-a-night who flock to the Emerald City and wherever else they play like the dearly departed Bill Walton on a Grateful Dead tour and they’ll tell you they squeeze those hometown shows a little tighter. Walton was one of two hoops legends the band paid homage to, including the Storm’s Sue Bird, whose jersey hangs from the arena’s rafters.

It’s been six years since the Seattle rock giants played a local sports complex and it’s always a special occasion when they do. But Tuesday’s two hour and 20-minute set also carried the distinction of being the first time the band played the newish Climate Pledge Arena, gigs that felt even longer in the making.

“It’s about time we play this damn place,” Vedder said after a soul-easing “Low Light” that greeted the enamored crowd like a smile from an old friend they hadn’t seen in a while.

Never mind the fact that Pearl Jam has probably played more arenas than the nascent hockey franchise that occupies the three-year-old facility. Even though it was their first turn at Climate Pledge Arena, the Seattle quintet already seemed to enjoy a home-court advantage, having rehearsed for their tour at the venue last month. Despite a few more eh-whatever feedback hisses than there should have been during the first half of the band’s set, Climate Pledge Arena has literally never sounded better than it did Tuesday.

The pristine mix was otherwise perfectly dialed in for the room, even during a dazzling opening performance from fellow Seattle rock faves and recent PJ tourmates Deep Sea Diver when fans were still filling the seats.

There were plenty of tender moments throughout the night, including an emotional “Man of the Hour” dedicated to Walton — the NBA legend who died Monday — and Vedder’s solo acoustic turn on “Just Breathe,” which went out to “long relationships” and the band members’ wives, who were all in attendance. But at times, Vedder and the guys seemed more interested in raining thunderbolts down upon the crowd like a rock ‘n’ roll Zeus perched atop the Space Needle, thanks in part to some of the new songs off this year’s gripping “Dark Matter” LP and the band’s own god of thunder, Matt Cameron, behind the drum kit.

During the runaway crescendo on “Scared of Fear,” Mike McCready’s guitar screamed and squiggled like the amber lines across the backdrop — part of the new-look visuals created by Tacoma-based artist Rob Sheridan for the tour. It was a tasteful, complementary addition for a band that’s long favored a more no-frills stage production. Functionally, it also allowed them to dispense with the more obtrusive video screens customary with arena shows, instead incorporating live footage of the band into the design in a more interesting and organic way.

Rolling into “React, Respond” — a nervy post-punk slapper that formed around a Jeff Ament riff — an energized McCready bounced around the stage like the teenager who “popped his knee out” playing Bumbershoot on the same Seattle Center campus 40 years ago.

It sounds simple to say, but it’s hard to not be overcome by the history and connection one of Seattle’s flagship bands has with its hometown whenever they play to a Seattle crowd dotted with Ten Club Mariners T-shirts and, this week, Kraken-colored Pearl Jam hockey jerseys newly purchased from the crowded merch tables. Even for the guys used to standing in front of packed arenas, it seems.

“This town is full of memories,” Vedder said after the healing newbie “Wreckage,” a call for unity amid political division sown by Donald Trump, the former president whom Vedder (unsurprisingly) took a swipe at moments later. “We wrote this song there, we recorded that one there, broke up a fight over there. And things have changed a little bit, sometimes maybe a lot, but this has been our home for, well, some of us more than 30 years, 33 years. … But it’s always been a point of pride to be part of the music community in this city and the artistic community, and I hope we’ve represented this town well to the rest of the world. It really has been like a dream that we’re still up here after all this time.”

Speaking of Seattle pedigree, the local history-makers gave a couple nods to Jimi Hendrix as the show wound down, first joined by Deep Sea Diver for a rousing, tambourine-smacking “All Along the Watchtower” that saw guitarist Stone Gossard rip a searing solo.

“Oh Mike, how do we say goodbye?” Vedder said, playfully spurring McCready to launch into the fan-favorite mashup of PJ classic “Yellow Ledbetter” and Hendrix’s “Little Wing.”

“Well, damn,” Vedder gasped before closing with another new song, “Setting Sun.” “You make us want this to be a more usual occurrence. We don’t want you to get bored with us, but we’d love to come back and do this again — I mean Thursday, but then again and again and again.”

Be our guest. I bet Macklemore would even let you drive his Zamboni.

Set list

Release
Thin Air
Low Light
Given to Fly
Scared of Fear
React, Respond
Wreckage
I Am Mine
Even Flow
Dark Matter
Daughter
Upper Hand
Waiting for Stevie
Man of the Hour
Satan’s Bed
Rearviewmirror
Just Breathe
River Cross
Running
Deep
Do the Evolution
Alive
All Along the Watchtower
Yellow Ledbetter into Little Wing (Jimi Hendrix cover)
Setting Sun