Relax fellow Pearl Jam fans, it's only Liisa LaDouceur. I've got a story that puts everything into perspective, don't you worry. You spent the morning following the concert reading reviews online and you saw Liisa LaDouceur's review from the Toronto Sun. It probably upset you.
LaDouceur makes a number of infuriatingly ignorant comments, far too many to tear apart here, and she closes her "special to the Sun" with this string of pearls:
You could call Pearl Jam timeless. You could also call them outdated. They've earned the right to be classic rockers, but even when they play their biggest hit, Alive, it doesn't feel like a classic moment.
Vedder certainly didn't turn up his performance a notch. (Although he did run to one side of the stage instead of just facing drummer Matt Cameron.)
It was just another rock song from by-gone era, back when Pearl Jam actually mattered.
For two and a half hours, Pearl Jam preached to a grateful flock.
Then at the end, they were upstaged by a man in a cowboy hat and tambourine.
Just because they can make a good living being serious, damned good players with a massive back catalogue, doesn't make them relevant in the outside world once the lights go up.
As Bono's presence only highlighted, they're certainly no U2.
Here's a little background information for you. During CBC Radio's "50 Tracks" earlier this year, LaDouceur was asked to respond to the fact The Tragically Hip's "Courage" was being nominated for inclusion as an essential Canadian song. She immediately trashed the entire band calling them nothing more than "hoser rock" and tossed them aside as "nothing special". Now, LaDouceur is writing that Pearl Jam is only relevant to "the drunken, university-aged crowd" that attend their shows. She has taken yet another soulful, rockin' band that continues to write and produce brilliant material and has tossed them aside as irrelevant.
As I said off the top, don't let this waste of ink get to you. It's just Liisa LaDouceur, the woman who despises all that is authentic and soulful and nominates Sweeney Todd's "Roxy Roller" as an essential song. Her agenda is clear and that doesn't make her relevant in the outside world once the lights go up.
