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Last night I had the chance to see Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam fame perform the second of two shows at Massey Hall with opener Liam Finn. While the lads both put on a spectacular performance, I have to agree with Eddie (as well as the usher at Massey Hall) in saying that I’ve never seen a more poorly behaved and boorish crowd at a show in my life. It was akin to a gathering of 2,765 unruly and loutish frat boys, with incessant yelping, hollering and song requests.

Anyhoodle, from the start: New Zealander Liam Finn, who’s the eldest son of Crowded House frontman Neil Finn started off the night with a bang. He’s touring with “EJ”, aka Eliza-Jane Barnes, who acts as a backup vocalist and multi-instrumentalist to Liam’s wacky jams. Liam proved himself as a consummate performer, bouncing between guitar, vocals and drums, often within the same song. He was a drumming powerhouse, just absolutely destroying the drumkit and thrusting his energy towards the performance.

I’m no effects specialist so I’m not sure what Liam’s loop pedal is called, but it was pretty impressive the way a one man (and woman, technically) band churned out a set of multi-layered songs with such ease. Liam would lay down a basic drum beat or guitar riff and then loop it while he moved on to set up the next instrument, while EJ used a similar effect to throw down vocal effects and blips so she could sing lyrics for the remainder of the songs. Liam performed a beautiful song called I’ll Be Lightning that at one point morphed into a cover of The Beatles’ Dear Prudence. Dunno if anyone else noticed that but I was super touched by that segue! Then Liam asked if he could take the liberty of performing a literally acoustic rendition of Gather To The Chapel for us. He grabbed a guitar and headed to the very front of the stage with EJ, and they performed the song with no enhancements and no microphones - just a guitar and two voices. The rest of the forty-five minute set was a spastic, balls out effort by the pair that was greeted with a standing ovation.

Next was Eddie Vedder, who has to be just about the most patient performer I’ve had the pleasure of seeing. The crap he put up with from the crowd last night mind-boggling display. He came out to Daniel Johnston’s Walking The Cow and had the entire audience on its feet cheering and hollering for a full five minutes before he was able to shush everyone and get the show started. He remarked that as the second and final night in Toronto, it’d be a challenge to make this one better than the first night and said, “Wow, I know we’re at Massey Hall but it feels like a f**king stadium in here!”

I had the misfortune of being seated on the floor in front of a dude and his girlfriend who had clearly purchased single tickets on opposite ends of the auditorium but still saw it fit to sit together - the girlfriend sat on the guy’s lap for the duration of the show (if you’ve ever been to Massey you know that leg room is at a premium) and the pair of them screamed (literally, full-throated, blood-curdling screams) and “yippeeeeeeeed” throughout the entire set. I’m going to upload some audio from last night so you can hear what I’m talking about.

Also, what part of “no flash photography” is misunderstood? I’m assuming everyone in the crowd last night was functionally literate, if not seeking to be respectful of the artist’s wishes. In a dark theatre is it really necessary to capture every single frame of the performance with flash photos? Audience photography provided a secondary lightshow altogether for the entire evening.

Eddie was VERY chatty and gracious with his song intros and anecdotes, talking about how much he loved Toronto and how much it reminded him of his hometown in Seattle. But there were so many requests yelled out throughout the 2.5 hour performance that on about a dozen occasions Eddie had to urge people to STFU and let him perform. It’s like, he already HAS a setlist with accompanying lighting, effects and everything to go along with it. This isn’t a jammy evening of improv. That’s not what you paid upwards of $100-200 to see, so BE QUIET. He even said that at the way things were progressing there’d be a headline in the paper the next day: “Riot At Massey Hall Erupts While Singer Plays Mandolin”.

Eddie sang heaps of Pearl Jam songs (among them, the multiply requested Lukin and Porch, a five song set from his soundtrack to the movie Into The Wild and a bunch of Neil covers - both Young and Finn. During the rowdy encore EJ came out and helped Eddie perform Helpless (by Neil Young), saying “We never play this live. We literally just figured this song out five minutes before coming out here”. People flipped out.

For the encore Liam Finn came out to help Eddie sing Society (again, from the Into The Wild soundtrack), and remarked that it’d be “hard to follow up an act like EJ”, to which Eddie replied: “well you’re lucky you aren’t stoned like you were last night!” Liam replied with a “…” look. Eddie came out for a second encore by which point he’d been playing for over two hours…total insanity.

Full Setlist:
Walking The Cow (Daniel Johnston Cover)
Trouble
Sometimes
Around The Bend
Dead Man
Man Of The Hour (Big Fish Soundtrack)
Long May You Run
Masters Of War
Setting Forth (Into The Wild Soundtrack)
No Ceiling (Into The Wild Soundtrack)
Guaranteed (Into The Wild Soundtrack)
Far Behind (Into The Wild Soundtrack)
Rise (Into The Wild Soundtrack)
Millworker (James Taylor Cover)
You’re True
Soon Forget
Lukin
Let My Love Open The Door (Pete Townshend Cover)
Porch

Encore:
Wishlist
Helpless (Neil Young Cover)
Society (Into The Wild Soundtrack)
Throw Your Arms Around Me
Small Town
No More
Patriot
Arc

Encore #2:
Old Man (Neil Young Cover)
Keep On Rockin’ In The Free World
Hard Sun (Indio Cover)

Posted on Thursday, August 14th, 2008 at 3:51 pm by Kat and is filed under Concerts & Events.

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