SEATTLE — It was obviously too big to ignore. Excited Eddie Vedder fans stood in snaking merch and bar lines in Benaroya Hall’s lobby before the Pearl Jam frontman played his second of two Seattle shows Tuesday night. But entering the hall, the energy was different than it was one joyous night earlier.
News that Seattle alt-rock great Mark Lanegan had died of unknown causes earlier that day punctured a hole in the Seattle music community’s collective heart. By sheer coincidence or some sort of cosmic will, Vedder’s hometown show celebrating his exceptional new “Earthling” album became the community’s de facto gathering place — a bunch of rocker types communing in a regal symphony hall that felt like a church compared with the ballparks and arenas Pearl Jam typically plays.
Singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, Vedder’s friend and member of his Earthlings band, again began the evening with a brief but riveting solo set. Sitting at a piano, Hansard dedicated a powerful rendition of his heavy “Bird of Sorrow” ballad to the late singer-songwriter and Screaming Trees frontman. A song that felt so uplifting just 24 hours earlier was completely devastating, in the most beautiful way, on Tuesday.
The more force Hansard applied to his voice and keys, the higher the growing lump in our throats seemed to climb. With all due respect to the great symphony that usually fills the room, it takes a rock singer to level a raw, emotional gut punch like that.
Following a lengthy intermission, Vedder, one of Lanegan’s peers and a leader among a Seattle generation that has lost too many of its brightest musical lights far too young, led his all-star band on stage without much pomp. After a quiet-storm cover of R.E.M.’s “Drive” and a version of “Here Comes the Sun” that felt a little “Harvest Moon,” Vedder looked out into the crowd, acknowledging the number of familiar faces in his hometown, and addressed the elephant in the room.
Vedder spoke of the “challenges” of the last two years and more recently, seemingly a reference to the pandemic and the band’s own bout with the coronavirus, which caused them to reschedule a few dates on this short tour.
“We felt good last night and excited to do it again,” he said. “Then I got here about 4 o’clock and all of a sudden my body started shaking a little bit. And I started to feel really terrible and I think it was because I was having an allergic reaction to sadness. Because we lost, um, Mark Lanegan.”
As his voice began to tremble, the crowd erupted in applause, as if putting one hand on Vedder’s shoulder while saluting Lanegan with the other.
“A lot of really great musicians — some people know Seattle because of the musicians that have come out of the great Northwest,” Vedder continued, regaining his composure. “Some of those guys were one-of-a-kind singers and Mark was certainly that. Such a strong voice. It’s hard to come to terms, at least at this point. He’s gonna be deeply missed and at least we will always have his voice to listen to and his words and his books to read — he wrote two incredible books in the last two years. So, just wanted to process it and put it out there and let his wife and loved ones know that people in his old stomping grounds are thinking about him, and love him and miss him.”
With that, Vedder and Hansard led the band through a poignant rendition of their “Tender Mercies” duet off last year’s “Flag Day” soundtrack, their voices ascending together until they stood as tall as Mount Rainier during the song’s colossal peak.
They wouldn’t dwell in the heaviness of the moment for too long. As Vedder’s voice softly faded out, the band launched into “The Dark,” beginning a run of new songs with a determined force. The rest of the show was just as exuberant as night one.
Healing will begin another day. But last night, Vedder and a packed hometown crowd got to share the weight of losing a brother and towering figure in the Seattle music community together. Especially after the last two years, that’s worth cherishing.
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