The Music of Pearl Jam Rocks Sacramento with Corduroy

Jun 20, 2018
2 min read

Last Saturday night at the Ace of Spades in Sacramento we were taken back to the 90’s with an amazing hard rocking show by Corduroy – A Pearl Jam Tribute Band and their friends, Longview – A Tribute to Green Day, who opened the show.

As most of you who know me personally or have followed AlterLatino Music, you know that we are not always keen on “cover bands” and we will most likely never cover them on our humble site, but tribute bands are another story; to me, tribute bands for the most part, are made up of accomplished musicians in their own right who get together for the love and passion of a certain artist and they learn all the intricacies of the artist and music they are interpreting like The Fab Faux, Queen Nation, Space Oddity, Wild Child and the bay area’s Corduroy – A Pearl Jam Tribute Band and Longview – A Tribute to Green Day and others.

Longview got things going with a blistering set that had everyone dancing and singing along to Green Day’s hits like “Basket Case”,” When I Come Around”, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”, “Welcome to Paradise”, “American Idiot”; and of course, “Longview” among many others.

When Corduroy hit the stage, the audience was ready for some more heavy rocking and they were not disappointed as they were treated to raucous versions of “Alive”, “Rearview Mirror”. “Jeremy”, “Porch”, “Dissident”, “Corduroy” and there were also some subtle moments such as the superb versions of “Black” or “Daughter” with some Pink Floyd and Neil Young thrown in.

The members of Corduroy were definitely able to embody the energy and passion of Pearl Jam, John Gambaro and Ivan Vite on guitars traded leads and rhythm and weaved in with ease as Charles Suico on bass and his counterpart Oliver Zelada; who was drumming with the band for the first time, kept the whole thing together with a solid grip that allowed Diego Zegarra on vocals to stretch out vocally and physically as he definitely captured the essence of Eddie Vedder on stage with an almost carbon copy of his voice even as he jumped and swirled around all over the stage.

The enthusiastic crowd was definitely as much a part of the show as the band was on stage and they jumped around, moshed and joined in with great sing-alongs, especially with “Better Man”, which was a definitely the top highlight among many. After playing for over an hour and half, the band finally said good night, but not before coming back and delighting the audience with an exquisite “Yellow Ledbetter”.

Corduroy – A Pearl Jam Tribute Band will be playing the Retro Junkie in Walnut Creek on June 30, The House of Rock in Santa Rosa on July 7, Apcal Winery in Madera on August 10 and the Chapel in San Francisco on August 11, and more shows are to be announced soon.