Eddie Vedder-led Pearl Jam recently brought their ‘Dark Matter’ tour to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the start, the band mixed up the succession of the first four tracks from their new record for the first time on tour. They placed their classic track ‘Daughter’ after the trifecta of ‘Sacred Of Fear’, ‘React, Respond’ and ‘Wreckage’ and right before ‘Dark Matter’. In the classic Pearl Jam fashion, Eddie Vedder dropped references to the city they were performing in during the concert.
Eddie Vedder losing big
During the performance of ‘Wishlist’ — which was highlighted amazingly with a massive disco ball in the middle of the arena, a spotlight beaming onto it from the ceiling and millions of glittering lights cascading in every direction. The band frontman went on to add another verse to the song.
“I don’t need Vegas to feel lucky,” Vedder sang.
“Besides, I lost $500 playing Blackjack and I said, ‘I’m f***ing out of here.’ Maybe we’ll be back tomorrow, dear. Or maybe better yet, next year.”
At another point, Vedder made an announcement. He said that he would conduct an experiment and gave a fan $500.
“So, you’re not going to see me out gambling; you just aren’t gonna,” Vedder said, before speaking with a couple near the front of the stage.
“Alright, I’m giving you $500 bucks. Who’s the better gambler? She handles the money? That is an honest man. Here’s $500 bucks; just see if you can double it. I trust ya. If you lose it all, it was part of the experiment, and if you win any of it, we split,” Vedder added, drawing laughs and applause from the crowd.
“She’s bringing out the honest man in me… Stone, I took that money out of your backpack, Vedder added, drawing even more laughs and cheers from the audience.
A heartwarming story
The legendary vocalist then revealed a Vegas story to the crowd. He talked about an evening when he performed at The Pearl in Las Vegas during one of his solo runs. He divulged that the show fell on Halloween.
“This cool thing happened because my wife and I work really hard on curing this skin disease and treating it and curing it, it’s called Epidermolysis bullosa, EB we call it,” Vedder said.
“Towards the end of the night, this woman I think dressed like a peacock or something, she came up and put a big wad of cash in my hand and said ‘if you play the song ‘Black’ I will donate this big wad of cash to EB.’ So, I said ‘oh, that’s very kind of you but I’m not playing that song on this tour, it’s Stone’s song.’”
Vedder added: “More people kept walking up the hallway with cash and some were bringing cheques. All of a sudden it was like $3,000 on the front of the stage. I thought, well, I got to f***ing do it. It was very powerful to think that in Las Vegas, which you think is kind of a greedy town, that people were so giving and also because it was Las Vegas they had big wads of cash in their pockets.”
Vedder said the money went to a great cause. He further stated that night sticks in his memory and he is still grateful for that night.