Just close your eyes and imagine you're at a Pearl Jam concert. more ›

The Cameron Crowe documentary about Pearl Jam's twenty years as rock icons will be showing at the Gene Siskel Film Center, starting Oct. 1. But if you want to get tickets, you're too late. more ›

Happy birthday to one of our favorite Evanstonians. more ›

We have yet to actually dislike a Pearl Jam album but admit it's been a long time since we were thrilled by one. Something seemed to have infected Eddie Vedder after the band's loose Mirror Ball / Merkin Ball collaborations with Neil Young. It was almost as if he was afraid to let any joy enter the music any more for fear his icon would disapprove. Vedder's vocals ceased to jump, and most songs fall into one of two categories; they were either raging screams of anger and despair or they were quiet ballads that barely moved beyond a handful of notes. There were deviations form these formulas, but the majority of the band's middle work fits those categories. more ›

I am no sports fan but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the Cubs. Apparently Eddie Vedder does to, as evidenced by the tune "All The Way (Cubs Song)" we saw him perform last August. You can snag an MP3 of this burgeoning anthem here. more ›

Evanston's Eddie Vedder -- a hometown boy who has since made good in a little band named Pearl Jam -- performed the first of two sold-out solo shows at The Auditorium Theatre last Thursday. We admit we went into the show with low expectations since we honestly do enjoy Vedder but were less than impressed with his first solo outing, the Into The Wild soundtrack. We figured selections from that album would feature prominently and we weren't too excited about that prospect. more ›

We're gearing up for the stretch-run of Chicago's premier music fests, Pitchfork and Lollapalooza. But there are some pretty great shows still happening unrelated to those fests and lots of tickets going on sale or already available. It's too hot to mull it over any more, so here we go. more ›

Going to Lollapalooza, we saw all sorts of oddities, curiosities and plenty of people handing out shit. The one group we stopped to talk to was the Chicago Park District, who were taking signatures for a petition to help stop BP/Amoco dumping their industrial waste into Lake Michigan over in Whiting, Ind. Point blank, it sucks. As someone on a message board commented, "even animals know not to defecate in their drinking water." No kidding.... more ›

Chicagoist (this one, anyway) doesn't fancy ourself to be a music critic. We sometimes think the years we spent working "in the industry" may have caused us to prefer to keep our distance to avoid ruining all of our fun. But we do love music, obsessively so, and have been known to traipse all over the continent proving that fact. So when an internationally renowned music festival shows up in our backyard, there's not much... more ›

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here's a peek at what we've been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler's Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh's controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio's Hacienda is a good place to get... more ›

Look! It's Jordan Catalano pulling the classic Eddie Vedder at Lollapalooza - singing from the top of the scaffolding. It's all over. We can hardly believe it. From the long walks in the park to the grilled corn - it just seems like yesterday that we began this adventure. But, all good things must come to an end. So here's the link to our last day of photos. more ›