Ohana Festival kicks off with sets from Pearl Jam, Devo and Maren Morris

Midway through Crowded House‘s set on Friday, Neil Finn looked out at the first-day Ohana Festival crowd at Doheny State Beach and gave voice to what everyone was feeling.

“We’re so happy to be here and you are, too,” the singer-guitarist said. “That makes all of us.”

But no one was happier than Eddie Vedder, who repeated Finn’s words to the packed festival field during Pearl Jam‘s headlining set later that day.

The love that Vedder feels for Ohana, which he founded in 2016 and curates each year, was as clear as the bright blue skies above the glittering ocean on Friday: He popped on stage to welcome early birds at the start of the fest; hours later, he joined Crowded House on stage for a pair of songs; and throughout Pearl Jam’s first of two performances there this weekend.

“You can do a lot of touring and not end up in a place that feels as good as this,” said Vedder after Pearl Jam tore through a revved-up take on “Corduroy” early in its set. “When you set up this close to the ocean, and this close to that great wave, you think about surf, and you think about surfing, and you think about that ocean.”

The ocean, of course, is a large part of why Vedder created Ohana, and why the festival works so well in a setting that makes it one of the most beautiful festivals around. Sitting at the top of the bleachers offers killer views of both the stage in front and the waves behind.

It was fitting, then, that Pearl Jam mixed a few rarities into its set that reflected Vedder’s passion for protecting the marine environment.

“We haven’t played this one for a while,” he said by way of introducing “Amongst The Waves,” which made its debut in the current Dark Matter Tour on Friday. “We played it for the surfers out there during soundcheck. It sounded great so we’re going to do it.”

A bit later, as he paused to acknowledge the fans who travel to see Pearl Jam as much as possible, Vedder noted that they track the appearance of unexpected songs in sets, hoping to hear something they’ve never heard before.

“They call it the ‘white whale’ song,” Vedder said of these almost mythical rarities for which fans live. “Which is very appropriate in this case.”

“The Whale Song” followed, the deep rarity from a 1999 benefit album for the Surfrider Foundation, making its first-ever appearance in a Pearl Jam show.

“We hope it connects and sends vibrations to our friends under the water,” Vedder said as he introduced Zach Irons, the musician son of former Pearl Jam drummer Jack Irons, who originally wrote and sang the song.

Other highlights of Pearl Jam’s performance include fiery takes on fan favorites such as “Corduroy” and “Even Flow” early in the set, and “Alive” and the show-closing “Yellow Ledbetter” in an encore that also featured Vedder bringing out most of the musicians who’d performed earlier in the day to join the band for a rousing cover of Neil Young’s “Rocking in the Free World.”

A quartet of songs from the new album “Dark Matter” felt a lot more lived-in than they had when Pearl Jam debuted them live for Southern California fans in May, with “Scared Of Fear” and “Wreckage” feeling and sounding more and more like future classics.

The band remains one of the most powerful forces in rock and roll. Vedder’s vocals are remarkably strong and emotive, lead guitarist Mike McCready ripped furious solos throughout the night, right down to his unaccompanied flourish to end “Yellow Ledbetter” and the night, and the rhythm guys – Stone Gossard on rhythm guitar, Jeff Ament on bass, and Matt Cameron on drums, were their usual rock-solid selves.

The new wave oddballs Devo played just before Pearl Jam, delivering a set that delighted fans, and apparently Vedder, too, who closed out Pearl Jam’s “Daughter” with a segue into Devo’s “Beautiful World,” and snuck a snippet of Devo’s version of the Rolling Stones‘ “Satisfaction” into the finish of “Who Ever Said.”

Devo’s set hasn’t changed much in the last few years and that’s just fine. With songs such as “Girl U Want,” “Whip It,” “Uncontrollable Urge,” and “Gates Of Steel,” the band had fans, some of them wearing red Devo “energy domes,” singing along throughout. On “Jocko Homo,” singer Mark Mothersbaugh went down to the crowd, leading the crowd in the call-and-response chorus, “Are we not men? We are Devo!” and what’s more fun than that?

Singer-songwriter Maren Morris added a touch of country to the day with her twilight set on the smaller Tiki stage. We say “touch” because she’s increasingly moved away from the label, partly through her unhappiness with the socio-political positions of some stars and fans, and partly because her music is more varied than many in that genre.

The bluesy gospel feel of her Grammy winner “My Church” flowed into a slowed-down cover of the Billy Idol-fronted Generation X’s “Dancing With Myself.” Her No. 1 country single “The Bones” got a huge response from the crowd, as did “Push Me Over,” a song she has credited with giving her the courage to come out in June as bisexual.

Crowded House, meanwhile, delivered a gorgeously melodic set of sparkling rock songs that had the still-not-full field in front of the Ohana main stage all smiles.

The New Zealand/Australian band features founding members Neil Finn on vocals and guitar and Nick Seymour on bass. In recent years, Finn’s adult sons Liam and Elroy Finn have joined on guitar and drums, with Mitchell Froom, who produced the band’s first three albums in the ’80s and early ’90s on keyboards.

Their set included plenty of fan-favorite singalongs such as “Don’t Dream It’s Over,” which arrived second in the set, “The World Where You Live,” “Something So Strong,” and “Fall at Your Feet.” With only 50 minutes allotted, the set shorted the excellent new album “Gravity Stairs,” though “The Howl” and “Teenage Summer” both surfaced strongly here.

Neil Finn has told the story before of the first time he met Vedder years ago. As a young man parking cars at a resort hotel in San Diego before Pearl Jam had formed, Vedder had come across a cassette tape of Crowded House and fell in love with the band’s cover of the Hunters & Collectors’ song “Throw Your Arms Around Me.”

So it wasn’t a surprise when Vedder popped out late in Crowded House’s set to sing that one with the band to the delight of the crowd. It was more of a surprise, though, when that song was followed by “I Got You,” a song by Finn’s first band, Split Enz, and Vedder came out again for its final verse and chorus, a seemingly impromptu addition that was not on the printed setlist but happily got added at the final minute.

Others performing on Friday included the alternative rock band Dogstar, which features actor Keanu Reeves on bass, the Florida indie rock band Flipturn, singer-songwriter and Brockhampton collaborator Ryan Beatty, and the rootsy country singer Jaime Wyatt.

The earliest sets included the all-female Irish rock band Pillow Queens, big wave surfing champion and musician Makua Rothman, and singer-songwriter Linka Moja, who while attending Kelly Slater’s surf camp a year ago, grabbed a guitar and started playing her songs in front of Vedder and singer-songwriter Jack Johnson, and earned an invitation to Ohana more or less on the spot.