Why Pearl Jam Diehards Love Eddie Vedder So Damn Much
Artist, innovator, connector—and your favorite big bro
I don’t count myself as a member of the very, very large army of fans that follow the band Pearl Jam. But if the band’s almost constant airplay on mainstream rock, alternative and even college radio did not wake me up to Pearl Jam’s largesse, then attending a show at Wrigley Field definitely did the trick.
Back on August 20, 2018, it was a beautifully sunny and mild Monday evening. Obviously, the Cubs were out of town, and North Side baseball fans were in fine spirits since we had just won the World Series just two years earlier and the team was sitting atop the NL Central Division’s standings, with a 71–52 record. To top it all off, Cubs fan numero uno—none other than Eddie Vedder, himself—was in the house.
As I approached the stadium to meet up with my friend before the show, I was struck (but not surprised) by the number of custom Chicago Cubs jerseys I saw with the name VEDDER sewn in on the back, most often with the number 10. That evening, there was a level of enthusiasm about the band pervasive enough to overshadow the fact that a popular Major League Baseball team calls Wrigley home.
Once I was inside, I saw how truly diverse Pearl Jam fans are. Despite what some of the band’s detractors have said about Pearl Jam being masculine music or “cock rock” for dude-bros, the fans that were there suggested the opposite.
After my friend Manish, a Ten Club member who flew in from New York City to see the band, directed us our seats about 25 rows back, in shallow right-center field. Fans were of all ages, from all walks of life. I spoke with gay and lesbian couples who had arrived that week from places like Las Vegas, Wichita, Kansas, and Bangor, Maine. I saw father and son duos, with sons both small enough to fit on dad’s shoulders and high schoolers tall enough to tower over me. There were also plenty of musician types—grown-up grunge rockers from the 90s, who had presumably much less hair than when Vitalogy came out. Plus there were a few men in crisp golf shirts next to wives dressed just as preppily.
I talked with them all about where they came from and what was their first Pearl Jam show. They told me how many shows they’d seen—both during that summer tour alone and in total. Quickly, I figured out that there is no archetypical Pearl Jam fan.
Like an elder brother?
Not surprisingly, all of the Pearl Jam faithful I heard there talked about Eddie Vedder. But the talk I heard didn’t sound like your typical gushing.
Fans there surmised that the leader of the Pearl Jam Nation might talk about his undying love for the Cubs, or that he might bring a famous Chicago athlete pal on stage at some point. PJ fans wondered what he’d say and when about the state of the world and that creep in the White House, Donald Trump. Overall it felt like Eddie Vedder’s arrival at Wrigley Field, just miles from his childhood stomping grounds in Evanston, Ill., felt like the occurrence of a big older brother coming home for the holidays.
Attendees at the show there were less star-struck than they were like younger siblings who just wanted to hang out with their favorite brother so that they could hear some of his stories from the road, or pick up a guitar and have him sing us a song. Even ones we’ve heard before.
Years ago, I remember reading a Rolling Stone article titled Eddie Vedder: Who Are You? littered with little anecdotes about the charm and personality of the future Rock and Roll Hall of Famer long before he was big time. One story involved Evan Dando of the Lemonheads—a band that I was a major fan of and have seen before—in which Vedder was super excited about an upcoming show. Turns out Vedder was just being enthusiastic while encountering Dando’s oft-documented habit of being a jerk:
Surfer John Von Passenheim remembers the night when [Vedder’s then-band] Bad Radio opened for alternative darlings the Lemonheads.
“[Eddie] got introduced to Evan Dando and said, ‘Look at the flier I made for the show.’ Evan looked at it, said, ‘Oh,’ dropped it on the floor, and walked away.” But such snubs were rare.
“He’s got a personality where you don’t feel threatened by him at all,” says Nick Wagner, another longtime San Diego friend. “He’d just pick up an amp and strike up a conversation.”
Knowing about both bands and their frontmen, I could definitely see this happening. One lead singer playing the stock part of the too-cool-to-care rock star, and the other just being a normal guy who wants to share his love for music with everyone. Never having met or interviewed Eddie Vedder, I always yet suspected that, along with the music, it was his down-to-earth ways that captured Pearl Jam’s faithful,
But I wanted to ask a few diehards not just about why they love Pearl Jam but how they read the band’s frontman — who he is to them.
The first person I asked about this was a podcaster friend of mine. Kris McEwen hosts a golf podcast called Golf Origin Stories and can often be seen in Pearl Jam gear, hauling his Pearl Jam golf bag full of clubs. I asked Kris point-blank what makes Eddie Vedder more than just a singer.
“I think what makes Eddie Vedder such a unique frontman is how genuine and authentic he has always been with us, the fans, since the very beginning. Fans who have been going to Pearl Jam shows for most of our lives, we know Eddie Vedder,” he said.
“We’ve seen him at his most intense, his most vulnerable, and his most honest moments. We’ve laughed with him after he screwed up his own lyrics, and confided in us about his own successes and failures along the way.”
McEwen, who says he has been to 25 of the band's shows, points to one that stands out: July 11th, 1995, at Soldier Field.
“Besides the setlist being absolutely incredible from the first note of “Release” to the final one of “Yellow Ledbetter”, I remember watching Vedder in absolute amazement. There was no ego, he was hiding nothing from us, and he was just as appreciative and in awe as we were that he was there.”
Chicago singer and bandleader, Brett Wetzel described himself as not the kind of PJ fan who attends all three or four shows in one city, the way some do. Nor does he hit other cities across the country the way my New York friend does.
“What makes Eddie a good frontman? A few things: First, his voice. He’s got a very wide-ranging voice. In the early days, particularly on Ten, that low vibrato was ominous. Yeah, you can hear the anger in it, but more than anything else, it was unsettling.”
But Wetzel says there is something else.
It’s hard to not be struck by how communicative Vedder is. I recall a particular rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the booth at Wrigley about 10 years ago. I thought, ‘How does this guy convey so much affect?’
“Even in this fun little ode to baseball, his voice was saturated in emotion!”
Wetzel, who has been to 11 PJ shows also adds: “The entire band is highly energetic, but Eddie upfront is the maniacal ringleader — risking his life climbing the rafters while affectionately protecting the audience to keep itself safe in the mosh pit. You can’t help be sucked in by the intensity of his commitment to the moment.”
Jennifer Doyle, a Pennsylvania native who has seen the band nine times, hints that she understands why some music fans might see the poet in Vedder just as much as they see a performer.
“Eddie Vedder stands apart from the rest of the rock and roll world because he’s not in it for the fame. HE actually NEEDS to do what he does,” Doyle says. “He pours his heart out every time he’s on stage. Those words he’s singing are coming from deep within. Read them. Don’t even turn the music on. Just read his lyrics.”
Doyle also shared a personal story about a show in which Vedder performed songs from his solo album Earthling, last year. Doyle, who also refers to Vedder simply as “Ed,” mentioned a Pearl Jam fan Facebook group called Smile, named after a song from the album No Code, in which she met a large group of friends. One of those friends named Sean Sullivan died as a result of Covid-19.
“Sean was a double lung transplant recipient, having lived 40 years with Cystic Fibrosis—and fucking Covid took him. We rallied, and one of my best friends was able to get a message to Ed, that told Sean’s story.”
Doyle adds that on the last night of Vedder’s ‘Earthling’ show run in Chicago, he told Sean’s story on stage and played “Smile” in his memory.
“Ed is human and isn’t afraid to put his humanity on display. It felt like a hug from a best friend that I’ll never meet. And, Sean’s memory will live on forever through videos of that show.”
Andy Frye has written for Forbes and Rolling Stone, and his time travel book Ninety Days In The 90s comes out this spring.
