Pearl Jam's live performance proves better than album

Short hair, tear-free clothing and not a flannel in sight.\nBut, it was unmistakably Pearl Jam on stage at Deer Creek Aug. 18. Although the Seattle-based guitar band seemed impassionate on its last album, it could not disappoint fans ' new or old ' with a performance that matched the band's passion in days gone by. It proved it still could produce the magic made in the early 1990s.\nDeer Creek might as well have been a 1,000-person Seattle club when Eddie Vedder and the boys took center stage. The outdoor amphitheater was standing-room-only on the lawn and almost entirely filled in the pavilion. Audience members sang along when they new the words, whistled and cheered when they did not.\nPearl Jam opened the set with "Interstellar Overdrive," moving directly into "Corduroy." It set the stage for the rest of the concert. Vedder, in his old ways, hugged the microphone and smoked a cigarette. Mike McCready and Stone Gossard jumped around stage. The feeling in the amphitheater so resembled the playing and passion of early Pearl Jam that Vedder might as well have climbed the scaffolding, allowing himself to fall into the crowd. Jeff Ament might as well have smashed a guitar.\nIt was that kind of playing that led the crowd to sing along with nearly every song, every word. Although Vedder fumbled over the "Even flow," the crowd was too busy cheering and singing along to notice. And Pearl Jam still received screams at the end of every song.\nThe set was packed by songs such as "Dissident" and "Go," mainly highlighting the band's old work. To please the new fans, it slipped in songs like "Even as its seems" ' and the passion that drove the performance of those songs impressed even those disappointed by Binaural. \nThe crowd loved it.\n"You might not know this or have thought this about Indiana until you've been to Siberia or Nashville. And last night we were in Nashville and it felt like hell," Vedder told the crowd. The crowd screamed with deafening appreciation.\nAfter a 20-song set, Vedder returned to the stage alone, dedicating his first song to his brother. He plays a soft, deep version of "Throw your arms around me." The band rejoined him on stage for six more songs, including "State of Love and Trust" and "Crazy Mary."\nWhen the band went into "Last Kiss," the audience responded with lighters and cheers. Cheers brought the band back to the stage for a second encore, starting with "Indifference." Vedder pulled a sign from the crowd that read "Free world" and the band went into its cover of the Neil Young song, "Rockin' in the free world." \nIt was a powerful ending to a powerful concert.\nThe days of Pearl Jam in clubs of under 5,000 adoring fans packed shoulder-to-shoulder, packed so tightly the crowd moves as one, are gone.\nInstead, the boys have proven the grunge band formed from roots like Green River and Mother Love Bone are still alive in amphitheaters where crowds still pack in and move as one, sing as one, believe in the band as one.\nConcerts like that one prove the guys from Pearl Jam still have it in them.