Pearl Jam played at Auckland’s Mt Smart stadium last night – the first in a string of New Zealand and Australian tour dates, following a North American tour, for their latest album Dark Matter. Frontman Eddie Vedder weaved in his love for New Zealand, and apprehension following the US election, during an idyllic and joyful two-hour set that reaffirmed the seminal grunge act are as authentic and powerful as ever. 

Eddie Vedder seemed especially happy to be in New Zealand last night. 

He had that wistful look of a man whose world order had been pulled out from under him these past few days, his faith sucked out of his body watching a CNN or Fox News panel as they digested the US election results. 

You’d hope he would have been happy to be here anyway, after over a decade away since Pearl Jam headlined the Big Day out at Auckland’s Western Springs in 2014. 

But being other than in America this week did appear a small blessing to the beloved frontman of the seminal grunge act. 

There’s little need to point out the obvious, and Vedder didn’t see the need to be so explicit either during the roughly two hours the band ended up on the Mt Smart Stadium stage. 

But there were hints throughout the concert that this was to be a cathartic evening for the 59-year-old. 

“It wasn’t feeling right all that long ago. Now it feels all right,” Eddie said early on in the gig with a slight laugh. 

“These are times when you don’t take things for granted, especially in a faraway land where you haven’t been in f***ing 12 [sic] years … to play music for you in this perfect weather is exactly what we want to do.” 

He was right about the setting. A gentle temperature and soothing rays greeted the 20,000-odd people who had gathered to see another iconic act as support – and predecessor to the 90s grunge movement – in the Pixies, led by singer-songwriter Frank Black. 

Following a haka on stage to welcome the main act, Pearl Jam opened with Given to Fly from their 1998 album Yield. Its warm flowing melody rose in that distinctive Pearl Jam way, inspirational but hardly blindly optimistic. 

Backing the performance on the massive stage, projection screens were picturesque aerial drone shots of New Zealand and Auckland. You got the gracious vibe the band was going for with the move, but it was actually incredibly distracting to the performance, and I was glad when it quickly transitioned to a projection of the band itself. 

Next came Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town – a sleeper hit off their 1993 album Vs. that was never released as a single but has continued to grow as a fan favourite over the decades. 

A refrain full of lament seemed extra poignant at the concert. Vedder almost sighed as he sang it time after time as the sky turned deep blue: 

“Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away 

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away” 

An injection of energy came with Why Go off their debut 1991 album Ten. 

Eddie Vedder (left) on stage at Auckland’s Mt Smart Stadium for Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter tour. Photo / Tom Grut (Frog Productions) 

Lead guitarist Mike McCready broke into long elaborate solos throughout the night. It was in the style of a very conventional rock and roll concert, something that in another setting might be cheesily predictable. But such moments weren’t dwelt on in a self-indulgent way. 

It was true of Vedder and the entire band’s performance. This was a real concert in which they were fully engaged in the music. It didn’t feel like they were rolling out anthemic hits, even when they were. They were ripping through a set in the most authentic way, engaged in the music. 

And it wasn’t until a good 45 minutes into the concert that one of their huge hits was rolled out – Daughter off Vs. 

Buttering up the crowd before he launched into it, Vedder casually offered up a local reference: “This is the home of the mighty Warriors, much respect. Up the Wahs.” 

It was done in a charmingly low-key manner. He wasn’t looking for a big crowd back and forth. Rather just throwing it out there with a smile. 

During the bridge of Daughter were excerpts from the Pixies’ hit Monkey Gone to Heaven, and Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall. Rebellion and absurdity thrown into the vocal mix, and it all seemed to fit. 

But just prior to Daughter was another indirect political pointer. 

“Last night we did a sound check here, and you know when you have events in the world that take place, maybe events in your life that take place, a song that you had written before, all of a sudden you sing it and it has different meaning, new meaning, and I felt it when we were playing this last night,” Vedder said 

The song in reference was Wreckage off their latest 2024 album, Dark Matter, which this Auckland gig was promoting on one of the final dates of a US and Australasia tour. 

You don’t have to be a literary professor to read into the lyrics, which are all continuations of the below theme: 

“Combing through the wreckage, pouring through the sand 

Surrounded by the remnants, what we could and couldn’t have 

Raking through the ashes, falling through my hands 

Charcoal on the faces in the burned-up photographs” 

But despite the impression this might give, the night did not dwell in despair, and the second half of the main set had a spattering of big hits the audience lovingly embraced. 

Even Flow off Ten got everyone to their feet. Then maybe my pick of the night, Jeremy, off the same album had the crowd singing along so loud even Vedder’s voice sounded momentarily dulled by the magnitude of us all. 

A personal fav of mine, Not for You off 1994′s Vitalogy, made it in with its infectious repetitive thumping guitar riff. 

Porch off Ten ended the main set. As the band returned for their encore Vedder had some effusive appreciation for the beauty of New Zealand. 

‘It just feels very inclusive here … the air is clean,” Vedder said. 

“There was one kind of homeless gentleman in an alcove and I thought maybe he was being paid by the Government to pretend … I don’t know, it just didn’t look real to me.” 

This idyllic view of Aotearoa was clearly contrasted in his mind with his homeland. 

“But it’s unrealistic to think that life on this planet will always be smooth, and hardship and struggle [won’t exist] ... it’s best to keep hope and you use your actions in such a way that you can help fate to make a positive world, a positive neighbourhood, a positive community, a positive country,” Vedder said. 

“We were thinking that maybe progress scares people, they may think that they may be excluded because of it. But there’s room for everyone, and we can figure it out and we will figure it out. We’ve made progress, now we’ve gone backwards. We’re going to figure it out, it just might take a little longer.” 

Lead guitarist Mike McCready broke into long elaborate solos throughout the night at Mt Smart Stadium. Photo / Tom Grut (Frog Productions) 

But such lofty (dare I say sentimental) reflections didn’t distract form the fun of the encore, which included the punk rock banger, Do the Evolution off Yield, and the undiminished infectious riff and melody of Ten’s Alive. 

It’s a cliche to say Pearl Jam have endured from an era of musical acts that conspicuously burnt out. 

But on their new album, Dark Matter, Vedder seems happy to point it out himself. 

As observed in Pitchfork’s relatively positive review of the new album, the passing of time and their resistance in the face of this seems a point of pride and motivation. 

“As Dark Matter draws to a close, survival seems heavy on Vedder’s mind. ‘I’ll be the last one standing,’ he sings on Got to Give, a Who-like bundle of ringing power chords where the singer sounds more and more like Roger Daltrey the higher the song builds. ‘Am I the only one hanging on?’ he wonders on the sombre closer, Setting Sun, an elegy seemingly for a departed friend.” 

Maybe part of the survival aspect of the band goes to their professionalism. The whole gig just sounded close to perfect. Maybe not wildly exciting, or loose, in the way you weren’t sure what was going to happen next. But you were confident nothing would be off-kilter in a satisfyingly, precise way. Vedder’s voice was as profound and powerful as you’d expect from any studio recording. 

It ended as you could only expect given the tenor of the night, and the implied rejection of what Donald Trump as the next US President represents. 

With the full stadium lights illuminating all of us they cranked out their celebrated cover of Neil Young’s hit Keep on Rocking on Rocking in the Free World. 

It was almost blindingly bright. 

Despite the name of the tour, and the album it came from, the night was never going to end on a dark note. 

Pearl Jam will play a second show at Auckland’s Mt Smart Stadium tomorrow, November 10. Tickets through Ticketmaster. 

Tom Dillane is an Auckland-based journalist covering local government and crime as well as sports investigations. He joined the Herald in 2018 and is deputy head of news.