i just read and saw some pics of pearl jam playing at the annual convention of Target employees in minnesota... they played 3 sogs ('fixer', 'seeker', 'porch')... also on the bill included nick jonas, michael bubele etc...

http://www.twofeetthick.com/2010/03/on-target-at-target-live-from-minnesota-its-pearl-jam/


im not entirely sure how i feel about this...

weird. i wonder what PJCTI would say...

'sellout' is overused and too often applied wrong but it certainly is an arrow for their critics to aim right at them... think of wht thy would've said about themselves in the '93-'98 era...

though i do think it is the beginning of them going into their Rolling Stones era- whre they become more of a touring monster and their records are just vehicles that allow them to tour as opposed to writing continuously great songs and caring about that end of the product...

still, weird... pearl jam playing 3-songs at a Target convention...

yeah, you know? whatever... i'm too old and too tired to really get into a lot of this ****e but it just seemed, um, weird...

to some degree, it is difficult for some of us to become aware that our heros have changed or that thier priorities have shifted somewhat... i still get a charge out of stories i heard about eddie vedder's song-writing habits prior to 'vs.' or 'vitology'- his need to not make himself too comfortable etc. That, to me, is exciting and makes the music that much more real and charged-up...

larry bird was always the hardest worker on the celtics and tom brady was always the 1st to arrive-last to leave the practice field but at some point, even this changes- as much as we as fans don't want it to. the Tom Brady of 32-years-old (and insanely rich, succesful etc.) is completely different thatn  the 24-year-old version... maybe the fact that our heros change is more our own issue than theres, i don't know...

i do know that eddie vedder and mike mccready and stone gossard etc. are as much a part of the machine that is rock n roll as anyone else... maybe there was a brief moment in their careers where they fought against it and maybe said fight was enough for a lot of us to become associated with them to some degree and want to fight the fight with them but to expect those days to continue is a bit too much, i guess...


having said all that, i say this: i think 'backspacer' is a solid record- i would give it a B or B-... their association with Target was a bit unusual but not something that will soil their legacy (i still think their reissue of Ten and their confusing need to sell everything from that era was way more head-scrathingly disappointing...) 

thats all, dtrain's at work and now he is going to type 'kim kardashian' into google images... 

You're turn, Nick! Have fun at the show tomorrow night!

P.S. The Fixer rocks live. You might be disappointed at how much you enjoy it.

Josh, to their credit, I did not hate the Backspacer songs live. Instead... I just sort of instantly forgot them. They weren't offensive in the moment, necessarily, though I have to admit that "Just Breathe," "Speed of Sound" and "the Fixer" bored the **** out of me.

But it didn't matter. They were still great, amazing, transcendent, and I can't wait for tomorrow night.

And Mr. Train, thank you for the kind words.