Eddie Would Rock
Dec 04 2006 / North Shore. HI
Pearl Jam Goes Off in the Waimea Valley
Following the opening ceremonies for the Quiksilver Big Wave Invitational in Memory of Eddie Aikau, there were three groups of people who dispersed from the beach at Waimea Bay: Those who knew what was up, those who had no clue and those who suspected. What was bubbling was a private party up in the Waimea Valley, and the rumor that North Shore native Jack Johnson was going to play a set with part time North Shore resident Eddie Vedder and his band of Merry Men called Pearl Jam.
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That was quite a rumor, and I spent part of the afternoon hanging on the coattails of Strider Wasilewski, Bob McKnight, Glen Moncata, Jeff Hakman, Peter Mel and any of the major Q people, hoping to get a magic wristband.
But I failed, and after nightfall, I was on my own.
I drove up to Waimea Valley hoping to wave my hand and Obi wan Kenobi my way past the Westside Security Braddahs, but those Jedi tricks didn¹t work on them and they sent me packing. Driving back to Kumupali Street, I was bumming because I had a feeling I was going to miss out on something great.
And then a miracle happened. I checked my email and got a magic one from Josh Katz at Quiksilver, who said I was on the guest list and that it all started at 7:30. I read that at 7:30 and busted out of the house like a giddy teenager, a half dozen friends hanging onto my leg, begging, Take me with you! Eddie rocks!
This time I drove back up with that magic email in my hand, and it worked, getting past not one, not two but three braddah levels of security, and the magic green wristband which I waved at even more security guards, who then waved me into the Pikake Pavilion at Waimea Falls Park.
I have been to other functions there: A Roxy party last winter, and a fund raiser for the Paumalu/Pupukea Land Trust. Events there are always fun, but this one was special. Walking in there was a full stage and sound and lights setup at one end, and a lot of people who were all looking around and at each other and feeling privileged.
A friend of mine was shooting the Arby's Action Sports Awards (see photos from the event) at the same hour in California and I had to wonder if any surfers showed up there at all, because they all seemed to be at this party. There was a great deal of mingling and talking and quiet expectation for about an hour or an hour and a half, as people who¹d rushed home for a quick shower after the opening ceremonies then rushed back all spruced and fluffed and ready for anything.
Again, Quiksilver put on the dog, offering an open bar to one and all. At about 9:30 omnipresent MC Skil Johnson brought out Kelly Slater, Bob McKnight and Blake McElheny, a local North Shore resident active in the effort to save the Pupukea/Paumalu plateau. McElheny presented a photo of the plateau to Bob McKnight and thanked him and Quiksilver for donating $100,000 to the effort to preserve that large chunk of the aina, and preserve it for ever. He gave the other photo to Kelly Slater and asked him to pass it on to the Aikau family.
McKnight said a few syllables and Kelly Slater said a few syllables and then Kelly Slater introduced his friend and surfing buddy Eddie Vedder who took the stage with the Lovely Lads: Matt Cameron, Jeff Ament, Mike McCready, Stone Gossard and keyboardist Kenneth Boom Gaspar, a Waianae native who met Vedder out surfing.
While aficionados were expecting the first song to be Big Wave, Pearl Jam launched into Corduroy and after that the night was, as Australians say, On for young and old.
Hard to imagine a better venue or circumstance than seeing Eddie Vedder up close and personal in an acoustically great valley, relaxed and endorphined and among friends. I don¹t know Eddie Vedder at all but I do know surfing and the ocean and music, and Vedder was looking happy and relaxed, endorphined from a special day at Waimea Bay, paddling a quarter mile out to sea with two dozen of the best surfers in the world.
Vedder looked healthy and relaxed, and he commented from the stage how unusual it was for him to look to the first row and recognize most of the faces there. Vedder spends a lot of time on the North Shore, washing away the stress of touring and the music business, and surfing as much as possible to coat his brain with those sweet ocean liqueurs that keep the ideas and the inspiration and the music coming.
Pearl Jam are thoroughly modern but they have 70s roots whether they know it or not. Vedder puts out a surprisingly strong baritone growl from that light, surfer frame, and he brings back memories of Edgar and Johnny Winter. The Pikake Pavilion was all but overflowing with positive mana as Pearl Jam did a greatest hits and some covers, including The Ramones' I Believe in Miracles with World Wide Suicide, Even Flow, Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town and Can't Keep.Personally, the shows took me back to Santa Cruz in the 1970s, when bands like Tom Petty and The Police and Talking Heads and Santana and ZZ Top and Edgar and Johnny Winter and Devo and The Tubes made it a point to come to town and play intimate shows at small venues like The Catalyst and the Santa Cruz Civic. There was a summer when Neil Young lived in Santa Cruz and played all over town with a local band called Ducks. This night had that same vibe, good musicians playing for joy.
To paraphrase A Clockwork Orange: Pearl Jam purred away all horrorshow. A nice warm vibraty feeling all though your guttiwuts. For the first few songs I stood directly in front of the speakers with Peter Mel and his wife Tara behind me, Mark Cunningham to the right of me and Bob McKnight and Danny Kwock in front of me those two were as jazzed as anyone around them, getting completely sucked into a hard rocking, masterful band of musicians playing in the warm glow of friends, in a beautiful place.
Eddie Vedder talked between sets, about the ocean and surfing. Vedder thanked the people with money who had the good sense to give it away to people and places that needed it. He thanked his friend Kelly Slater for dragging him out to places like Waimea and Teahupoo where he didn¹t feel like he belonged and then Kelly came on stage, strapping on a black guitar with the new SL8R logo on it and helped out with a song or two.
Pearl Jam left the stage and then Vedder came back on with a bottle of water and a bottle of wine and a ukulele to sing Crazy Mary and Indifference. Guitarist Stone Gossard came on stage for Better Man and then Pearl Jam finished with ripping covers of The Who¹s Baba O'Riley and Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World.
It was all wrapped up just after 11:00, which is well past the witching hour in early to bed, early to rise Hawaii. Walking out, everyone in attendance was feeling lucky to be there. Matty Liu had been up front all night, and the veteran of hundreds of concerts and parties, many of them his own, summed it up with credibility: Best show I have ever been to.
- Ben Marcus
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