Mexico City - Emotions were running high even before Pearl Jam kicked off their massive sold-out show at Mexico City’s 62,400-capacity Foro Sol on Saturday, and for several reasons: The nearly three-hour gig marked the final night of the Seattle outfit's month-long Latin America Tour, it was the first time in four years that they'd played the Mexican capital, and to top it all off, it was drummer Matt Cameron's birthday.

Frontman Eddie Vedder paid tribute to the percussionist during the second encore following a triumphant run-through of "Jeremy," insisting that "he sits on a drum throne" instead of a stool "because he's a fucking king."

The inordinately high level of sentimentality might explain why the performance began on such a down-tempo note – Vedder & co. first crooned through slow-burners "Pendulum" and "Release" before picking it up (albeit only slightly) with "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter In a Small Town", which felt like a pointed tribute to this eagerly waiting audience with the lyric: "I just want to scream... hello..."

Vedder followed this by saying his literal hellos in somewhat broken Spanish read from a cheat-sheet: "Hay raza, feliz de verlos de nuevo y bienvenidos ya la última noche del tour. Estamos felices de tocar el último show en México City. Están todos bien? Todos seguros? Aquí vamos!" Which roughly translates to: "My people, we're happy to see you again and welcome to the last night of the tour. We are happy to play our last show in Mexico City. Are you ready? Here we go!"

The quintet then dignified the aforementioned "scream" by pulling out one high-octane song after another: "Why Go" led the seven-song run of like minded cuts, which included relative rarity "Breakerfall" and ended in all-star fashion with guitarist Mike McCready jumping into the pit and letting fans in the front row strum furiously at his six-string while he handled the fretboard.

Plenty of moments incited that sort of primal, rock-driven catharsis. There was the oh-so-Floydian extended jam on main set-closing classic "Rearviewmirror," where Cameron's increasingly rollicking pace acted like a cosmic wind to clear out the clouds and reveal an almost-full, strikingly yellow moon hovering directly above the stage.There was the repeated chant in reaction to a searing rendition of "Black" — "Ole! Ole, ole, ole! Pearl Jam! Pearl Jam!" – that stunned the entire band into smiling stillness for a full minute.Read more at consequenceofsound.net.