The Who's ultimate fan, Eddie Vedder weas on hand this past October 29th to join the band at a private benefit show in Los Angeles. The Pearl Jam frontman joined a scaled-back acoustic version of the band at a Teenage Cancer America fundraiser as they tore through their 1970 classic, “The Seeker.”
During a chat with Mojo earlier this year, Pete Townshend shed light on how his friendship with Vedder has blossomed with the singer and Townshend's two brothers, Paul and Simon Townshend: “We’ve been very good friends, but it goes further than that. He’s also very good friends with my brothers. My two brothers are much younger than me. Simon is 14 years younger and my brother Paul is 12 years younger. And they still live in the same street that I grew up in (in England).”
Townshend went on to say, “And often I’ll hear from, y'know, somebody in Ealing Common: 'Oh, we saw Eddie Vedder and your brother Paul in the pub the other day.' I’m like, 'I didn’t even know he was here.' 'Oh, he was just passing through but he bought a few rounds.' In other words, people in Paul’s local pub in Ealing know Eddie Vedder probably as well as anybody.”
On his 2012 album Looking Out Looking In, Who touring guitarist Simon Townshend recorded a salute to Vedder, titled “Electric Friend.” Simon gave us the back-story to the Eddie Vedder tribute: “That was inspired by Eddie Vedder. I was in L.A. and I had a friend contact me from Washington saying they wanted to get Pearl Jam tickets. So I texted Eddie, and within a half-an-hour he got 10 people in to the show in Washington. But not only got them in; shown them around backstage, got them all drinks, y'know, chatted to them. And I just thought that was so wonderful, that I could just so quickly do. . . could get that contact, that I was inspired to write 'Electric Friend.'”