Avocado Week 2020 #1
by Henrik Tuxen
Here’s an ode to the Pearl Jam album, also known as ‘The Avocado’ due to the iconic cover.
On Friday May 1st it has been 14 years ago since this album saw the light of day. A well-received album by both and fans overall and in many ways a return to the classic rocking style of the early 90s, whereas the successors Binaural (1999) and Riot Act (2002) still stands out as the bands most alternative outputs.
For me personally, 2006 and the release and tour of ‘The Avocado’ has been one my most intense and active, Pearl Jam – and especially Eddie Vedder, years. In short, I interviewed Eddie solo, and later Mike and Stone, in Pearl Jam’s warehouse in Seattle, early March (and hung around in the building all day). I saw PJ’s first European appearance after the Roskilde tragedy – the ‘warm up’ tour show for approx 2000 people at the Astoria in April, and full summer shows in Prague and Berlin. I got to spend a lot of time with Eddie at the Astoria and in Prague and met with Stone and other band members on a few occasions.
2006 and ‘The Avocado’ was a great PJ year for me, where I got to see, meet, ask questions, and experience the band from many sides.
At first, I was super excited about the chart topping single ‘Worldwide Suicide’ (which subsequently has kind of disappeared from the bands performances). When I heard the opening song Life Wasted, I really felt a spiritually revitalized band, which had such a powerful and articulated optimism, especially since I’d witness the devastating Roskilde Music Festival tragedy along with the band. Comatose was the most clean-cut return to the hard-core punk roots in what seemed like ages. A song like Marker In The Sand had the combination of the direct heavy approach and the melancholic, thoughtful, and melodic twist, which is something I had also loved about the band. Parachutes was full-blown McCartney ballad-pop, the pure power-pop of Unemployable, Eddie’s ever present inspiration from The Who on Gone and the ending with Come Back and Inside Job seemed to indicate a new side of contemplating thoughtfulness from the band, which they has explored further more later on, not at least on the current Gigaton.
It was a great album for me which I used for several purposes and provoked all kinds of feelings and thoughts. At the time I lived at home with my family where a lot of manual labor was required, not at least with chopping woods outside and carrying lots of heavy items, very often accompanied with the tones from Avocado in my headphones.
If you want to read about this in further details, jump to chapter 8 in PEARL JAM The More you Need The less You Get.
