Free The First Collection of Criticism by a Living Female Rock Critic by Jessica Hopper Page A

Carter-era malaise to which Darkness was born is palpable. It was made in a time where no one could buy the lie anymore—a long, bad war had made that impossible. The album’s metaphor of longing, lost innocence and consequence is best illuminated on “Racing in the Streets”—the tale of good people adrift in their betrayal, wanting to “wash the sin off their hands.” Darkness is the album that established Springsteen as one of the great communicators of the American dilemma; the work of someone born to a country founded on moral covenant, always striving to be that exemplar city on the hill but forever falling shy of its mark.

VEDDERAN: NOTES ON PEARL JAM’S 20TH ANNIVERSARY CONCERT
    TINYLUCKYGENIUS, September 2011
     
    So, this weekend, my friend Leor joined me in the car and we drove for two hours to see PEARL JAM in the woods of Wisconsin for 12 hours! It was for work ( Rolling Stone ), but lord knows I love a spectacle and Leor loves Mudhoney, and he was literally the only person I could find with any sort of enthusiasm at the prospect of going to an all-day anniversary festival for old, old Pearl Jam. Pearl Jam, who I never have paid much real attention to, other than I see pictures of Eddie Vedder and think he is not aging a bit and is still rather handsome. Two nights before I watched the Cameron Crowe-directed documentary about the band’s 20 years; lord alive, there is not a more earnest and tenderhearted person in rock n’ roll than Eddie Vedder, in case you were doubting just how sensitacho he rolls. The part where his bandmates explain that a few records in he seized control of the band and essentially tried to turn the band into Fugazi and that it pretty much almost broke them up was pretty much my favorite part because THERE IS ALWAYS THAT GUY IN EVERY BAND. I was always that guy in all my bands.
    Anyhow.
    Deep into Wisconsin! We arrived and there were tons of bros and white hats and people keeping the rain out with football team ponchos and slitted trashbags, grilling out of the back of pickups, with serious tents and folding comfortable chairs, and it was like 4 p.m., and there were already people so drunk they’d given up on wearing shoes.
    Inside, we went to our seats in the amphitheater. There were not a lot of people braving the rain for Mudhoney. I counted exactly five people who seemed to know the words. I ate a cheeseburger because I had to. Mark Arm, strangely, has not aged. I watched them doing the old hits and some new songs I didn’t know (did they put out a record I didn’t know about?) and the man was doing his Iggy wiggle and the new stuff all sounded like The Scientists and they closed with a Black Flag cover and I thought “Mark Arm must be doing a lot of yoga.” Also, I realized watching them that I think I last saw Mudhoney on the day before my 16th birthday, on the Every Good Boy tour, and I was seeing them, still/again on the day before my 35th birthday. I don’t know if that is weirder for me or to be them doing that, though being almost 50 and being in Mudhoney is probably a blast.
    Around us on the impossible-graded slopes of the amphitheater (it’s at a ski resort!) were PJ fans who totally only cared about PJ but soon might be drunk enough to give into something sort of pop-heavy as Queens of the Stone Age, because they were bored (and they did). There were hundreds of people sitting on wet grass in the rain wearing a trash bag that was squishing them so they looked like a blackened SpongeBob and gulping down $13 neon margarita-frosties from concessions that were served in foot-tall guitar shaped cups, limp and slackened by booze, numb in Vedder-ticipation. The amount that dudes in our aisle were coming and going to the beer stands past our seat was like 4–5 times a set, for $14 tallboys. I do not think ever in my life I have been around so many people who were so actively wasted for such a duration, and I have been to SXSW several times.
    And then, like three