Eddie Vedder Not Perfect

Liam Finn nearly stole the show from Eddie Vedder on Tuesday night, and it wasn't just because he covered Neil Young's "Old Man," which had the crowd hollering. Neil Finn's son is one of the best opening acts I've seen in a while. I wasn't very impressed with his I'll Be Lightning debut when it came out earlier this year, but he's something else live. He plays all the instruments on his record, and here he was accompanied by singer/songwriter Eliza Jane Barnes, who handled back-up vocals and some percussion. Live, Finn runs all his instruments through loop pedals and switches between guitar and drums. He's truly a virtuoso musician and his skills had some members of the crowd on their feet during his set. He's extremely energetic, and kept launching himself into the air and contorting himself around when wailing on his guitar. He got a standing ovation when he was done.

At other shows on his east coast tour and gigs earlier this year, Vedder has been playing more of the material he's written for soundtracks to Into The Wild, Big Fish and Body Of War. He's also done a bunch of covers and at other shows he's played obscure or less well-known Pearl Jam songs off Lost Dogs, the band's rarities compilation, and albums like Binaural.

While he played many of his solo soundtrack songs and a few covers on Tuesday, some Pearl Jam hits came out to play. Unaccompanied, Vedder launched into his version of Daniel Johnson's "Walking The Cow" when he came on stage and followed it with Cat Stevens' "Trouble" before segueing into Pearl Jam's "Sometimes" and "I Am Mine."

But the best part of his set came about a quarter of the way through when he began playing material from Music For The Motion Picture Into The Wild. The space between "Setting Forth" and "No Ceiling" was filled with some of the best crowd banter I've ever heard. Vedder began telling a story about Into The Wild, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last year and was screened at the Elgin Winter Garden Theatre, which is around the corner from Massey Hall. But he mispronounced the theatre's name, calling it "El-gin" (like the drink), which had the crowd yelling at him. But he couldn't hear, so he continued mispronouncing it. Once he'd learned how to correctly pronounce the theatre's name (a fan got up and whispered it in his ear), he got on with his story, which was hilarious.

After Into The Wild's screening last year he had to go to the bathroom, but was outside and there wasn't one around. "I wandered into this courtyard area, got out the appropriate equipment and then looked up and realized where I was. I was like, 'Fuck, Massey Hall? I can't piss on Massey Hall!'" This banter felt like it could have been 10 minutes in length, and while this could have killed the set, it only lightened the mood. Too many solo, mostly acoustic-based sets are dragged down by an overly serious mood, and that Vedder's sense of humour made the evening more enjoyable.

Although Vedder made several mistakes through his set, messing up "Far Behind" along with others, he recovered. He threw in covers of Phil Ochs' "Here's To The State Of Mississippi," (reworked with lyrics about Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the late Jerry Falwell), Tom Waits' "Picture In A Frame" and The Beatles' "You've Got To Hide Your Love Away" — which had the entire crowd belting out the chorus out — before he launched into "Last Kiss" and Pearl Jam's "Porch" before leaving the stage.

Vedder returned to play an encore that included Pearl Jam's "Wishlist" and "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town." He was joined on other tracks by Finn and Barnes, who later left so Vedder could finish on his own. But one encore wasn't enough, and the trio returned to play "Hard Sun," from the Into The Wild soundtrack to finish the evening. While Vedder wasn't perfect and his mistakes somewhat detracted from his set, it was an enjoyable, fun-filled evening nonetheless.