remnants: Talk About A Dream - Ed Vedder with the E Street Band, CAA, E. Rutherford, NJ, October 13, 2004

Twenty years ago I spent a week driving around watching the Vote for Change tour, going from Philadelphia to Cleveland to Detroit and then heading to St. Louis to see Pearl Jam, instead of heading to St. Paul with E Street. That was a bad call, because that was the night Neil Young showed up, but I didn't know that at the time everything got announced! I didn't go to DC for the finale, but then they added this show in NJ at the last minute. So, for subscribers, here's a walk down memory lane that I wrote and published somewhere, but have zero recollection where that was.

Many regular readers already know that back in 1996, I co-founded, co-edited, and wrote for a web site called Five Horizons, which focused on Pearl Jam. There were other fans doing archival work, but doing it poorly, and it drove me bonkers. I had just learned HTML and thought that if I had a website it might give me a chance to write about music, a thing I had always wanted to do but had not actively pursued for a variety of reasons. We built what people called "5H" by hand, in notepad. We were one of the first fan websites to use mp3's, anyone who has a concert chronology copied our format (it was a running joke between myself and my website co-conspirator, we liked that the nickname 'CC' could be 'Chris Cornell'). 5H was the place where I road-tested so much of the historical and archival work and methodology that's at the core of everything I do now. And I love that to this day, a mention of this project online will get at least a handful of "omg that was you? I spent my entire college career reading the concert chronology" responses.

In the mid-90s, you have to remember that your average Pearl Jam fan would refer to Neil Young as "Neil Old" and be annoyed that PJ were making a record with him while Neil Young fans blamed PJ for changes in Neil's music that they believed went away from the kind of classic rock they enjoyed; there was even a segment of these people who insisted that the reason Neil started wearing shorts onstage was because of PJ's influence. Every time I'd mention Bruce Springsteen as what I believed was an enormous, obvious influence on Vedder, I'd be told I was wrong by fans in both camps, and the day I said online that I saw "Insignificance" on Binaural as PJ's "Jungleland," I had to spend the rest of my time blocking people on both sides who either had no idea what I was talking about or believed that any comparison to "Jungleland" was blasphemy.

I felt very vindicated this particular evening in New Jersey.

Talk about a dream: Ed Vedder with the E Street Band
Continental Airlines Arena, E. Rutherford, NJ, 10-13-04

Admittedly, I’ve been lobbying for a Vedder-Springsteen pairing about as long as Ed’s been waiting for the Cubs to get to the World Series. I have been a Springsteen fan since, um, birth, and once upon a time, crisscrossed the country during Pearl Jam tours. While EdVed is best known as the biggest Who fan in the galaxy (and he is), as an admittedly diehard fan of both bands, I always saw the Bruce influences – some obvious (he’s got one onstage guitar pose that to me is very Springsteen), others less so (turns of phrase, melody lines). I missed the Chicago stop on the Rising tour, when Ed made his debut on the E Street Band stage (performing the obligatory “My Hometown”), and it hurt like hell.

So the thought of a potential EV-BS collaboration almost got me down to the VFC finale in DC, but ticket price prevailed (as well as sanity, life, work). Also, after seeing the tight structure of Bruce’s VFC set, the astounding number of participants involved, and the fact that it was being broadcast, I guessed that the chance for ye olde fashioned jam session where Ed would just amble on with Bruce and call out an audible for, say, “Zero and Blind Terry” was slim and none.

(Okay, admittedly, the chance for anyone to ever do that to Bruce is even smaller than slim and none, but the image is just way funny.)

I wasn’t even going to Jersey, for a long list of reasons that right now seem pretty stupid. But then I got a phone call Monday night at 2 a.m. from a friend who was at the DC finale. As soon as he said the words, “So, I was talking to Mike McCready earlier tonight...” I knew what he was going to tell me, and interrupted him with: “Do you still have that extra ticket?” There had been rumors since Detroit.

So there we were on 10/13, elbows on the stage right in front of Clarence. Our position meant that we had seen Ed walk in and hang out, so we had a pretty good idea what was going to happen when the roadies brought out a second mic stand after “Lonesome Day”. Bruce announces, “I want to bring out a friend tonight, who was so gracious to come out for our last stand – Eddie Vedder.” Ed walks out, but instead of just stepping up to the mic, he puts on the current EV guitar, and we look at each other in amazement. This wasn’t just going to be a one-song, Ed-sings-backup moment, this was going to be An Event.  I thought it was fairly gutsy of Ed to be playing guitar up there – he’s an amazing vocalist, fantastic lyricist, but not exactly a contender for the title of Guitar Slinger of Eastern Washington, and he’s standing up there with the self-proclaimed Guitar Slinger of Central New Jersey, not to mention Nils and Stevie.  He didn’t even play guitar onstage with Pearl Jam on a regular basis for the first few years.

If there was a person in that arena who expected “No Surrender” to be the first number (okay, a person who didn’t have their ears pressed up against the loading zone door listening to the soundcheck), I’d like to meet them and have then pick some lottery numbers for me. And not just singing backup or harmony on the chorus, Ed and Bruce traded verses, the arena erupting into unexpected applause of approval as Ed sang the first line of the second verse.

His voice was clear and beautiful and at its best. Ed strummed the guitar with deadly serious precision, and managed to use the teleprompters just fine too (somewhat funny as it’s something he’d previously mentioned he’d never do, along with in-ear monitors), looking a tad relieved when he could step back. It’s was a great choice for Ed, it totally suited him in spirit and in theme – “We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school” is a line that he could lay claim to as much as (if not more so) than anyone in the arena that night (including Bruce and Steve). 

The song ends, we go nuts – hell, everyone goes nuts, it was fantastic. But Ed’s not taking the guitar off! Another song?!  Wow.  Right about at that moment, CAA erupted into an “Ed-die, Ed-die!” chant. Keep in mind: THIS WAS A SPRINGSTEEN CROWD IN NEW JERSEY!  This has never happened before.   Bruce had to come out at every show on the entire VFC tour and specifically request that the shows be a “no Broooooce-ing zone” so that R.E.M. could play their set in peace. Springsteen fans are not known for their acceptance of anyone else on that stage outside of the original ESB; I mean, there’s a whole contingent of fans who hate the man’s wife! 

And then, our giddiness and the moment gave way to the collective sound of 20,000 jaws hitting the ground as the band lumbered into the unmistakable opening chords of “Darkness On The Edge of Town”.

Now, Darkness is my record, it came out when I was 14 and every note and every utterance and every second of that record belonged to me. For years, my standing fantasy was Ed and Bruce duetting on “Adam Raised A Cain,” from the same album. I would still kill or die to see “Adam” but watching the two of them perform “Darkness” together was still overwhelming. It was probably the first time in my life that I didn’t sing along, because I wanted to hear every single note and laser inscribe it into my brain, forever.

I imagine that, on some level, simply based on the type of music fan Ed Vedder has demonstrated that he is, and the types of songs he’s spoken about being meaningful to him, that Darkness also meant a hell of a lot to Ed when he was a kid, too – it’s not like Ed’s never written about his own issues with his father, or anything. And Vedder did the song justice, with power and precision and passion and yearning.

So after “Darkness,” Ed still makes no move to take off the guitar. A THIRD SONG??! And then someone hits not even 1/4 of a chord and I know what it is, immediately, and I get goosebumps. Earlier in the day, while waiting in the GA line, we were killing time by discussing the Ed setlist possibilities.

“Think Bruce would do a PJ song?” J. wondered.

“It would have to be ‘Betterman’,” I replied, automatically.

J. looked at me skeptically. “Betterman” has a reputation amongst the fans of being kind of, well, overplayed.

“When he played with Townshend at that showcase a few years ago, what PJ song did they play? ‘Betterman’. It’s the first song he ever wrote. It’s Ed’s ‘Thunder Road,’ it’s the song that will never leave him.”

What was that 1/4 a chord? The opening notes to ‘Betterman’.

“Uh, hello everyone, hello New Jersey. Bruce asked me to do this song, and since he’s the boss and I’m the employee, here it is,” Ed said, clearly taking a deep breath as he did so. And then Roy’s piano plays those opening notes, and Ed starts singing.

[Youtube won't let me display an embed, but here's the link]

If this had been a Pearl Jam show, I would have rolled my eyes, I would have sung along half-heartedly, I would have run through an imaginary list of songs I would rather hear than “Betterman,” I would watch Matt Cameron (who is awesome on this song). But mostly, I (and most anyone I know of the PJ persuasion, if they would tell you the truth) would largely be waiting for it to be over.

Tonight, however, things were, shall we say, a little different. Because tonight Ed was going to sing this song for all he was worth, there was no halfway, there was no crowd to sing the whole thing for him – although I have to say that the crowd was louder than I – and clearly, Ed and Bruce – expected it would be, judging by the pleased looks on both of their faces. And, tonight I was going to sing and yell and shout, I was going to do my personal best to represent every single Pearl Jam fan in the world at that moment.

And then Bruce takes a verse, and the tops of our heads exploded. Bruce Springsteen is singing a Pearl Jam song! Worlds collided at that moment, past and present connect, and it was a little bit much, to tell you the truth. Bruce was having a total blast, he so clearly loved every single second of it.

We should have waited, though, because the explosion was premature. Because the last thing anyone on Planet Earth – forget New Jersey, we’re talking the galaxy here -- would have suspected was for Clarence Clemons to come strolling over during the guitar break at the end of the song – that at a PJ show is a tasteful little jam while Ed figures out how he wants to end the song – and starts playing a solo.

THE BIG MAN IS PLAYING SAXOPHONE ON “BETTERMAN.”

BOOM!

That would be the sound of complete and total sensory overload. The guitar solos that followed and accompanied, from both Bruce and Ed, were inconsequential, honestly, after that. I never wanted it to end.

The crowd goes nuts, the song finishes, and Ed hugs Bruce, Ed hugs Garry, Ed hugs Patti, I believe that Ed would have hugged the entire E Street Band had time and logistics allowed, and left the stage. I remember very little of “Johnny 99” (which followed immediately after), and I felt somewhat sorry for John Fogerty for having to follow Ed, as the crowd’s reaction was not quite as animated for him. (True, Ed didn’t play “Centerfield” with a guitar shaped like a baseball bat, either.)

EV came back out for the encores, and acquitted himself admirably on both “Peace, Love and Understanding” (only guy who didn’t need the teleprompter) and fucking knocked the ball out of the park on “People Have The Power”. He sang his verse better than Bruce (who clearly missed having Stipe around to carry that number)! And at the end, being brought up as part of the E Street Band, arms around Max, hugs from Patti, hugs from Roy, even - for the bow at the end of the night.

The Vote For Change tour resulted in a lot of incredible, unbelievable moments: Michael Stipe with Bruce, Bruce singing with R.E.M., Neil Young turning up in St. Paul, a whole assortment of straight Bruce/ESB moments too. But tonight, Vedder hit the home run.