Live Report: Pearl Jam kick off European leg of Dark Matter tour with mega Dublin show

It’s been “fourteen bleedin’ years”,  if the elated gentleman standing beside me in Marlay Park was to be believed, since Pearl Jam last graced a stage in Dublin (so long ago that the venue they played was called The O2). Good things, so the cliché says, come to those who wait, and the Seattle grunge legends thundered through their extensive and noisy catalogue with a special performance on Saturday evening.

The pre-gig mood was upbeat, not least thanks to support act Richard Ashcrofts’ angelic ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ wafting through the temperate Rathfarnham air. Punters were in good spirits and seemingly keen to celebrate the ‘90s. Soundgarden, Nirvana and NI rockers Therapy? were some of the names clad on the various backs. Out-shirting them by some margin however was the main event for the night.

Pearl Jam @ Marlay Park 22-23 by Peter O'Hanlon.

On this tour, and indeed down the years, Pearl Jam have been known to switch up the setlist with each show. For the first gig of the European leg of their Dark Matter voyage in Dublin, they kicked things off with a banger from their 1991 debut Ten.

'Release's atmospheric opening riff proved an epic overture. It’s immediately evident that Eddie Vedder’s voice hasn't lost a shred of its emotional heft, as he satisfyingly delivered his trademark guttural howls with an apparent ease.

His bandmates aren’t too shabby either. Slick lead player Mike McCready, donned in a Thin Lizzy shirt, is enviously excellent. He shreds through distorted tornado guitar solos with panache – notably giving his frontman some brief respite from his jetlag by nailing a wah'd up version of Van Halen’s ‘Eruption’.

The rhythm section showcased Olympic level endurance. A driving force consisting of veteran bassist Jeff Ament and “one of the greatest drummers on the planet” (in Vedder’s words, and mine) Matt Cameron, they ferociously hammered through the busy patterns on ‘Jeremy’ and ‘Porch’ with metronomic precision.

Pearl Jam @ Marlay Park 22-23 by Peter O'Hanlon.

While the fan favourites were duly performed, Pearl Jam weren’t afraid to lean on their most recent full-length offering Dark Matter either. The album has been praised as being a sonic hark back to their ‘90s stuff, and heavy, nostalgia-hued tunes like ‘Scared of Fear’ and ‘Wreckage’ slip seamlessly into the setlist without instigating mass migrations to the portaloos and bars (which, warranted or otherwise, is often the case when veterans play newer stuff).

There was something homely and intimate about the gig amidst the gargantuan scale of proceedings. Perhaps that was down to Vedder’s laidback-dad apparel and general chattiness. The singer is eruditely aware of what's going on around him, wishing happy birthday to an eleven-year-old audience member and dedicating the ever-emotional ‘Black’ to a Amelia Ferguson, a young fan from Galway who passed away in tragic circumstances last week.

Pearl Jam @ Marlay Park 22-23 by Peter O'Hanlon.

Before delving into ‘Better Man’, he poignantly took time to praise a “well organised but powerful loud march” happening near his hotel in Dublin City in response to the suspended sentence given to Irish soldier Cathal Crotty, who pleaded guilty to assaulting Natasha O’Brien in Limerick.

“Apparently there have been some issues, it’s been brought to the forefront and it’s a very positive thing,” Vedder told onlookers, who applauded his words. “Some equality would be nice. There were lots of good men walking in the march, too. We got to ask the judges to protect our sisters, our daughters, our mothers, our wives.”

Pearl Jam @ Marlay Park 22-23 by Peter O'Hanlon.

Elsewhere, he reminisced about the kindness of his good friend Glen Hansard’s mother, and recounted an anecdote from PJ’s 1993 Slane Castle show with Neil Young, when Shane MacGowan broke into the latter’s dressing room looking to nick some drink. The tale was a nice lead into a sweet acoustic rendition of Warren Zevon’s ‘Keep Me In Your Heart’, which Vedder devoted to both the late Pogues man and Sinéad O’Connor.

They wrapped up a rambunctious encore - which consisted of classics ‘Why Go’ and ‘Alive’ - with another cover in the form of the aforementioned Mr Young’s ‘Rockin’ In The Free World'. Performed with an underlying jolt of hopefulness, it was as a positive punctuation mark at the end of almost two and a half hours of oscillating emotion and killer, evergreen musicianship.