At GM Place on Friday, September 2

Perhaps as an apology for backing down in its much-publicized battle with Ticketmaster, Pearl Jam gives its fans more show for their buck than most multiplatinum acts. This could be in response to the ever-inflating price of going to gigs, or it could be that the aging bladders of the boys synonymous with the Seattle Sound can now only expand so far and that triple-encore shows are really a ruse for bathroom breaks. Whatever the reason, the capacity crowd at GM Place last Friday crossed their legs and clenched for nearly three hours while the grunge survivors blazed through an impressive, if predictable, set punctuated with hits, sing-alongs, and anti-Bush innuendoes.

After so many years together, Pearl Jam-Eddie Vedder (vocals), Soundgarden alumnus Matt Cameron (drums), Jeff Ament (bass), Mike McCready (guitar), and Stone Gossard (guitar)-is as tight as Kurt Cobain's favourite rubber tourniquet. Consequently, the band delivered tracks like "Better Man", "Daughter", and "Alive" with both metronomic precision and an enthusiasm its opener, the Supersuckers, could learn from. With celebrity guest Nicolas Cage planted ringside, Vedder visibly fed off the energy of the audience, including those disadvantaged last- minute types seated behind the stage. The band beat the shit out of 29 songs-well, 30 if you include the "Hello Wolfgang" sequence that followed "Daughter". Wolfgang, one assumes, is the unborn son of Cage and his ready-to-blow pregnant waitress, er, wife, Alice Kim. Vedder said the show could technically be counted as the kid's first and insisted the assembled say hello, all together, several times over and over. While proof that babies make people do weird things, this touchy-feely moment was also good fodder for the Vancouver edition of the official bootleg downloads available from the band's Web site shortly after each show.

Throughout the evening, the crowd followed Vedder's lead, screaming songs line for line in an I-know-all-the-words karaoke bonanza that climaxed during the encores. Some cupped their hands around their mouths in a vain challenge to the dangling banks of megawatt speakers; air guitarists scrabbled in the air with their fingers trying to keep up with McCready and Gossard. The majority, however, simply stood and marvelled at the intense, sonic symbiosis that filled the Garage.

The night was dotted with the usual pro-Canada, isn't-Vancouver-beautiful mutterings from Vedder, until the shorn-no-more singer referenced recent stateside events in an ad-libbed version of "Wishlist", declaring: "I wish I came from a country that never went to war/Wish I came from a country that helped its poor". Welcome to Canada, Eddie, the land of poutine, potent beer, and universal health care-well, what's left of it.