Recap Pearl Jam at the United Center

Eighteen years after Pearl Jam released its bazillion-selling debut, Ten, frontman Eddie Vedder finally answered the question posed by one of its songs. Gazing at a packed United Center after playing “Why Go” early into his band’s set Sunday night, the Evanston native said, “Why go home? I am home! And it feels fuckin’ great.”

For a man whose band is so closely identified with Seattle and the grunge explosion of the early ’90s, Vedder keeps his Chicago roots close. “If you’re born in Chicago, you’re always from Chicago,” he said, “even if you don’t live there anymore.”

It wasn’t the last time Vedder would talk about growing up here during the band’s two-plus-hour set. Pearl Jam’s first encore featured two Who covers, “Love Reign O’er Me” and “The Real Me,” songs Vedder says he’d listen to on his Walkman while waiting for the el or skateboarding to his job in Evanston.

So he has a lot of love in his heart for his hometown, and Vedder and his bandmates clearly enjoyed themselves last night. Jumping around like a teenage pop-punk band, they looked younger and more connected to their music and fans than you’d expect for a band of their stature and history. That applied even to songs that Pearl Jam is undoubtedly sick of playing, like “Alive,” “Evenflow,” and “Why Go,” the three tracks from Ten that made it into their 27-song set. At this point, Pearl Jam could play “Alive” while comatose—as if to emphasize that point, guitarist Mike McCready, a wanky player in the best and worst sense of the word, played the solo behind his head.

But Pearl Jam played those old songs and even seemed to enjoy doing it. The band has always been populist that way, satiating both the people who mostly know the hits and the super-fans. For the former, “Yellow Ledbetter” (which closed the second encore and segued into McCready playing an ill-advised Hendrix homage of the “Star Spangled Banner”). For the latter, “Man Of The Hour,” from the Big Fish soundtrack.

Pearl Jam has eased comfortably from the au courant grunge of yesteryear into a new generation’s classic rock, but none of their peers from those old days has aged with such grace and class—and none of them can probably match the simple joy and intensity that Pearl Jam still brings to the stage. And judging by the three songs from the upcoming Backspacer (due out next month) the band played Sunday night, Pearl Jam’s relevance won’t be dissipating any time soon.