Pearl Jam was the formative band of my youth, singing with heart and guts and honesty in a media/music space formally occupied by boy bands and top 40 idiots. I remember Rolling Stone saying they saved our lives—and at the time it didn’t feel like an exaggeration.

While there were audio problems on this first night on Conan O’Brien‘s new Tonight Show stage (he just replaced Jay Leno, for those of you living a media-lite existence), and Eddie Vedder looks a little…well, 17 years older than when Pearl Jam change the lives of me and my college friends and much of our generation…the song roxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx. Video: