Pearl Jam takes local soldier’s request in Chicago.

Many thanks to Justin Kendall for handing me his September 17, 2009, issue of Rolling Stone, wherein Pearl Jam, at its August 24 show at the United Center in Chicago, took a request from the brother of Tomas Young.

Readers will remember that Young was wounded in Iraq in 2004; a bullet left him paralyzed from the chest down. He then became an outspoken critic of the war and was the subject of the 2008 anti-war film Body of War. Eddie Vedder penned a song for that film’s soundtrack, and it’s good to see that the two are still in touch.

Rolling Stone‘s Brian Hiatt reported that Vedder wasn’t happy to see a fan wearing a homemade T-shirt with the words “No ‘Even Flow'” on it at the Chicago concert. “We take requests, not orders, sir,” Vedder said after finishing that very song. Hiatt then writes of a moment that happened earlier in the evening, when Young and his brother, Nathan, who had just returned safely from his latest tour overseas, met with the band before the show:

Nathan asked Vedder to play the stark anti-war ballad “No More” — and that was one request Vedder treated as an order. “If a soldier asks you to play this song,” he says, “you play it.”

Pearl Jam’s latest, entirely self-released album, Backspacer, came out yesterday. Anyone heard it yet?

The new single’s pretty snappy.