A harrowing video of Pearl Jam’s guitarist tumbling off a Vancouver stage is making its rounds online and leaving fans of the longtime grunge band wondering about his health.
Mike McCready, who has played with the band since its 1990 inception under its clumsy initial name Mookie Blaylock, took a tumble on May 4th during a concert celebrating their 12th full-length album “Dark Matter.” The Daily Caller reports McCready was in the middle of his anticipated solo for the song “Porch” when he ventured too far out, setting foot on thin air while holding on to his guitar for dear life as he dropped into the crowd around him.
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Concert staff rushed to help McCready back on his feet, who shortly afterward brushed off the fall with a head shake and a finale to his solo. He did not stray that close to the end again for the remainder of the song.
Pearl Jam is in the midst of a yearlong tour that includes numerous U.S. stops before the band heads overseas in July. They will play Ireland, the U.K., Germany, Spain, and Portugal before returning stateside. The tour will culminate in November with shows in New Zealand and Australia.
Critical reception of “Dark Matter” has been generally positive, with reviewers on Pitchfork crediting the quarter-century quartet for retreating to the safety of fist-pumpers, blue-collar ballads, and lyrical themes of resistance. The album peaked at #1 on five Billboard charts in early May before taking a drastic tumble later on.
McCready, 58, is among the class of Gen X rockers still performing into middle-to-late age. Other standout acts from the heydays of Grunge, including the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots, Queens of the Stone Age, and Smashing Pumpkins are still actively touring, according to Bandmate. While the risk of falls may increase with their ages, those grunge singers pale in comparison to Mick Jagger, 80, who has been celebrated for keeping Rolling Stones concerts high-energy for decades.
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Thank you so much Houston, you were a fantastic audience! pic.twitter.com/fvUdLLp1Ib
— Mick Jagger (@MickJagger) April 29, 2024
Younger fans have increasingly flocked to bands from previous generations as children discover the discographies of their parents. Tik Tok is presently lit up with Gen Z’s reviews of Nirvana hits like “Lithium” and “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” 90s anthems that kids told the Guardian are “timeless” and effortlessly applicable to their lives. Bands like Pearl Jam will see future growth with a new fan base – as long as band members can keep their legs beneath their feet.
“With a lot of gen Z who missed the boat, myself included,” said Alexia Roditis, 24, frontperson of California punk rock band Destroy Boys. “You can see in the way they talk and act, it’s about trying to relive that 90s era, trying to be a part of something they weren’t a part of. The Fomo is the way they express their love for them.”
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