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Pearl Jam
At the Molson Amphitheatre
In Toronto on Friday

For a band supposedly so well-versed in the art of career suicide, the men on stage at Molson Amphitheatre seemed very much ... very much...what's the word? "I'm still alive," rumbled the bearded singer in his all-consuming baritone, Yes, "alive," that's it - thank you, Eddie Vedder.

Pearl Jam's past battles with the music industry and its struggles with its own early-nineties fame are well documented. But here they are, revitalized in the second act of their career - a career built on the hearts and minds of a dedicated fan base that's never been abandoned. After 1991's breakthrough grunge-rock debut album Ten , Vedder said he was too soft, that he hadn't a shell to protect himself from the hard realities of fast-lane music-making.

The brooding singer, highly vocal and visible when it came to fights and causes, but reticent when it came to self-promotion, has unturtled in recent years, and, before the Toronto concert, he spoke willingly with local media about Pearl Jam's forthcoming new Backspacer album. The concert itself kicked off a North American tour, with the band at peak level and connecting with its unwavering rooters as it drew from a canon of brash, defiant rock that is singular in its ability to engage crowds.

Pearl Jam stabs with staccato riffs, with the spaces between the stops and starts of Even Flow or Given to Fly filled by the "woos" and "ohs" and "yeahs" of savvy audiences. Then there are the invitations to sing along: Vedder favours elongated syllables ("IIIIII-I, Ohhhhh-oh, I'm still alive") and rolling melodic choruses ("She dreams in colours, she dreams in red," on the poignant Better Man ).

There was a state of excitability all night, right to the bold take on Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World , which completed the second encore set. New tunes (the lean, catchy single The Fixer and the New Wave-influenced Got Some ) fell in line with memorable works.

Those who arrived early for opening act Ted Leo and the Pharmacists were not disappointed when leader Ted Leo failed to make it out of New York.

A fill-in opening set (featuring solo spots and mix-and-match combos with Pearl Jam members and Pharmacists) began with Vedder's solo acoustic salute to Neil Young. "Surprise, surprise," he said before affecting versions of Sugar Mountain and The Needle and the Damage Done. Surprised? That Vedder would casually walk on stage, giving his supporters a bonus mini-show? No, no astonishment - just another night from one of the strongest rock bands alive.

The goods

The hits Given to Fly had the sold-out crowd a-bouncin' and Why Go seemed like a perfectly reasonable question.

The misses Blood flowed! When Eddie Vedder leaned on a microphone stand (during the anthemic Even Flow ) it gave way, sending the singer tumbling and leaving his elbow bloodied.

The crowd True-believers came from as far away as Ohio. Some paid scalpers' prices for a show that promised to be worth any trip or ticket price involved.

Overheard "We've gone on the ferris wheel together." Filling in for the absent opening act,

Vedder spoke of his relationship with mentor Neil Young and their times together at the CNE, before solo versions of The Needle and the Damage Done and ("It's so noisy at the fair") Sugar Mountain .

In a word Vital.