Stirring Point

It’s euphoria. Exactly one year ago, the Rolling Stones swept us up in their 60-year mania with a blistering version of Gimme Shelter. Now, on the same stage, on the same patch of earth, new notes poured over the crowd. They flowed like scolding lava, morphing all matter into one mass. Once more, we were all together and locked into something mystical. This was hallowed ground. This was New Orleans.

Now, it was my generation’s turn to rattle the earth. From tracks like Even Flow and Alive, the band shot us back to the early 90s when they hit the scene like an asteroid. Grunge became the lethal injection thrust into the veins of the late 80s glam rock scene. Ratt, White Snake, Poison—these acts wanted nothing but a good time, and time would eventually run out. Generation X was a pressure cooker of angst. The Michael Milkens and Gordon Geckos of the 80s treated capitalism like a zero-sum game and told the world that greed was good. Reaganites aimed to tear down regulations for the sake of wealth creation. Tipper Gore wanted to build walls centered around puritanical values and took aim at musical artists to do so. The moment needed a voice of opposition that stood for more than the bland disdain of runaway capitalism. It needed a passionate voice with a sharp political cause that had reach. It needed Eddy Vedder and Mike McCready. It needed Pearl Jam.

I stood stage right, around 100 yards from the band and felt the notes thump like a kick drum against my chest. From Black to Yellow Ledbetter, Vedder harpooned the hearts of 50,000 strong who’d grown up with albums like Ten and Vitalogy. His baritone yarling flushed Chris Cornell, Layne Stanley and Scott Weiland from his lungs: A generation of friends and ghosts unable to conquer the demons that claimed them. As I strained to sing along, I felt my eyes welling up as the voices around me cracked with effort. I had ghosts, too; we all did. The tears of the young girl in front of me plunged me deep into a well of empathy. Grief and joy were ours to share. Hallelujah, I thought. Music is that higher ground.

React, Respond, a song off their latest album, landed like a brick to the jaw. The lyrics, of course, are up for interpretation, but the chorus hit like a prescient forecast for the political chaos we’ll soon encounter. It pleads with us not to react to a situation but instead to respond to it with a modicum of care. This implies our reason can temper our response if we only stop to consider the circumstance before us. I wondered if the others around me felt the call for temperance charging them up. Reactions are like a drug, but so is the will to overcome reactions. Measured restraint is real strength.

A version of Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town tore off what was left of our armor and exposed the soft underbellies we all work to hide. We see the woman meet our glance. We smile and remember together:

I seem to recognize your face

Haunting, familiar yet

I can’t seem to place it

Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name

Lifetimes are catching up with me

All these changes taking place

I wish I’d seen the place

But no one’s ever taken me

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

I swear, I recognize your breath

Memories like fingerprints are slowly raising

Me, you wouldn’t recall for I’m not my former

It’s hard when you’re stuck upon the shelf

I changed by not changing at all

Small town predicts my fate

Perhaps that’s what no one wants to see

I just want to scream hello

My God it’s been so long

Never dreamed you’d return

But now here you are and here I am

Hearts and thoughts they fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade

When the show ends, we teem with energy and buzz with renewal. Two hours with Pearl Jam is an exorcism of the indifference we feel for the man standing next to us. We sing together, we cheer together and we walk out into the world together. Our hope is that unity is the lasting memory from today. Our hope is we’ll do our damnedest not to let that fade away.