Everything Pearl Jam got right – and Travis Scott got wrong.
Everything Pearl Jam got right – and Travis Scott got wrong.
Two acts, two stadium shows, two very different nights. Let's compare them...
One’s a 90s grunge act packing fans into stadiums by relying heavily on generation X nostalgia, singalong anthems by the dozen and a front man so genial he takes requests, gets goosebumps during the hits and jams with kids from the front row.
The other’s an abrasive hip-hop star responsible for one of the world’s worst concert disasters, someone who so obviously didn’t want to be here he moved his show forward a day and was back on his private jet within half an hour of it ending.
Pearl Jam and Travis Scott are from completely different worlds. Their songs aren’t sitting next to each other on the same Spotify playlists. Even the craziest algorithm can’t connect those dots. Eddie Vedder hasn’t exchanged words with Scott backstage because that would be one hell of a weird festival line-up.
And yet, with both acts playing stadium shows a little more than a week apart, I can’t help but consider the differences between the two: Travis Scott promised us a circus and we got one; while Pearl Jam offered us a comfy blanket of nostalgia during troubled times.
Is it unfair to compare the two? Possibly. But the differences were so stark, the successes so easy to see, the failures so impossible to ignore, that it needs to be done.
There’s a formula for stadium shows. You need to craft a journey, connect with fans, make everyone feel welcome, and bring people together – even those way up in the nosebleeds. Pearl Jam understood this. They opened both nights at Go Media Stadium with a pōwhiri and a haka. It set the tone and their intentions beautifully.
Visuals of Aotearoa graced the screen behind them. This localised the show, making it feel like much more than just another stop on a rock band’s huge world tour.
They put on a full night’s worth of entertainment too. I missed Liam Finn on both nights, but he’s always a class act (and magically made it to Pōneke on Saturday for the opening night of Crowded House’s Aotearoa tour). Front man Frank Black may have deliberately mangled ‘Where is My Mind?’ but The Pixies were there, too.
But Pearl Jam took it further. On night one of their two-hour sets, Vedder introduced Finn for ‘Habit,’ a No Code rocker and a repeat of something they’ve done many times together. On night two, Finn’s dad Neil came out for really quite beautiful encore of ‘Throw Your Arms Around Me’ – a repeat of something they did 30 years ago.
Pearl Jam were welcoming. They were thankful. At one point, Vedder read out a list of albums that wouldn’t have been made had he not been rescued from a Karekare rip by surf lifesavers. At another, he showed off the hairs standing up on his arm and pointed at the crowd as if to say, “You did this”.
They didn’t have to do any of that. But they were rewarded for it. At the Sunday show, Vedder described Friday night’s crowd as “one of the best crowds we’ve ever played for”. He was right. It will go down as Pearl Jam’s best performance in Aotearoa, an emotional night that channeled the negativity of the week into a cathartic intensity.
I will be thinking about that show for months. I may tell my grandchildren about it. They’ll be bored shitless, but I’ll tell them anyway.
Travis Scott? I’m still trying to forget about that night, that experience. The Houston rapper’s Eden Park show was troubled from the start. Tickets didn’t sell. Heavily discounted prices pissed off those who’d paid in full. Then Scott moved the date forward and angered everyone who’d booked flights, accommodation and babysitters.
When the show finally started, it was obnoxious. It was designed to be. Because Travis Scott didn’t do any of what Pearl Jam did. There was no pōwhiri. Aside from a very average 15-minute DJ set, there were no opening acts. Cricket chirps piped through the speakers seemed deliberately designed to agitate a liquored and fiery crowd who seemed ready to erupt.
Which is what they did. Bored, with nothing to do, they began to fight. They barely stopped. Punches were exchanged in the stands. Fists were swung on the field. Strangers fought. So did friends. Much of it was filmed for TikTok. Security didn’t seem keen to break any of it up. It felt like Scott wanted this.
There were so many fights, NZ Herald didn’t bother reviewing the show even though they had a reporter there. They didn’t need to because the story became something else, something much easier to cover. They took videos off social media, took a quick screengrab, and wrote some clickbait:
When Scott finally came out to play, it didn’t calm things down. The music was way too loud. There were no peaks and troughs. It was 70 minutes of hip-hop designed to bludgeon you into submission. All the nuances of Scott’s records were lost in a show that was so full-on it sparked 21 noise complaints and knocked things off walls.
And then, thankfully, it ended. So, one group of fans went home feeling aggrieved, ripped off, and possibly seeing a few stars that weren’t there earlier in the evening. Another group went home with anthems rattling around in their head. They felt cared for and catered to, like they’d been part of something special.
Next up, it’s Coldplay’s turn, when they begin the first of a three-night stand at Eden Park. Which way will that go? If it’s anything like Travis Scott, something will have gone very, very wrong.
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Bonus beat.
This might be overly simplistic, but perhaps PJ learned from themselves being involved in one of the world’s worst concert disasters, whereas Travis still thinks that seething anger among a majority young male audience is the winning formula? But you’re right, Eddie got everything right on Friday (including a 59-year-old larynx that has mostly retained its range and power).