The true spirit of rock and roll is alive and well and resides in Toronto. How have I come to this conclusion? In my opinion, Torontonians make the best audiences. Case in point, the Pearl Jam show at the ACC Monday night. The Seattle band is currently on a cross Canada tour, making stops in cities that most major bands don't even know exist. Their Toronto show brought out the finest live music fans this city has to offer.

It helped that Pearl Jam offered up well over 2 hours worth of music, spanning their extensive musical career. But it was definitely the audience singing along to nearly every song, chanting "Eddie! Eddie!" and breaking out their lighters for the ballads (and I mean real fire, not screens on cell phones or glow sticks) that made this a truly great night of rock. There were no lasers, fancy light shows, or even an elaborate stage set up. The night was all about the music.

PJ rocked on hits such as Alive, Black, Jeremy and Evenflow. In addition to the decade and a half of tunes that they were able to dive into, they paid tribute to the godfather of grunge himself, Neil Young, with a rendition of Harvest Moon. The crowd was so enthusiastic in their Eddie mantra at one point, Mr. Vedder let them know that he felt inadequate because he didn't know all of their names.

Just when the crowd thought the show could not get any better, during the second encore, PJ broke into a cover of Rockin In the Free World, bringing the house lights up in the arena, and as everyone clapped their hands off, none other than a cowboy-hatted, tambourine-wielding Bono joined the band on stage.

What would have been a really good show anywhere else became a truly great show because this audience proved they're still in touch with the true meaning of rock and roll.

Photo credit: PearlJam.com