“It may be harder than hell to get a job around here, but you have a great basketball team” was the first of many salutes that lead singer Eddie Vedder gave to the suburban Detroit crowd of around 12,000 during the band’s set at the Palace. Unlike past visits, Vedder seemed like talking more to the crowd and chatting it up, but leaving the usual political diatribes out of the forefront for the evening. The 2 hour and 35 minute set touched on everything Pearl Jam: the blazing old school material, the somber material of their later albums, as well as the stronger than usual cuts from their new, self titled album.

The set started eerily similar to other Pearl Jam sets before it: with the morose cut Long Road, which pleased the crazed hardcore Pearl Jam fans, but left many waiting for better songs. And in very similar fashion, the group launched into Corduroy, which got everyone else moving.

Many new songs were covered in the long set, which seemed to flow better with the older material versus the songs from their last couple albums. New tracks, such as the current single World Wide Suicide, and Life Wasted showed that the band still has some fight left in them.

But to no one’s surprise, the biggest crowd reaction was left for the old songs. Classic tracks from their landmark Ten album came back to back, with Even Flow and Jeremy sending the crowd into a flashback of 1992 all over again. The highlight of which was the Vs. track, Rearviewmirror, which may have had some of the loudest crowd participation of the evening, which ended the main set, before the encores.

The encores all blended together, which seemed to last almost forever. The encores in themselves lasted almost an hour, but kept the classic cuts (Alive, Nothingman), as well as new tunes (Comatose) intermingling together. The encores seemed to drag, but a high majority of the fans stuck around for what was a bit of a history lesson, as well as a look into a intriguing future.

The crowd of 12,000 seemed somewhat small for what many were dubbing the band’s comeback moment. The crowd seemed small, but devoted with the fans who had stuck with the band throughout the good and the unbearable of the band. It is obvious Pearl Jam is trying to make nice, and reach out to people that the band hasn’t done in ten years or so. Vedder and the rest of the band seemed more comfortable chatting it up with the fans, than trying to hide behind the music, as in the past.

But after the surreal jam session at the Toledo show in 2004, where Neil Young came out and did a 10 minute version of Rockin’ in the Free World, it just seemed like Monday’s night was great. In fact, it was at least one song short of greatness.