About time, Pearl Jam. Your large base of hard-core Twin Cities fans has waited 11 years for you to finally play another headlining show like the one coming Sunday at Xcel Energy Center. We still love you, but now you know we really hate to wait.
The Replacements recently learned this, too. They went a year between their first reunion gig and last month's Midway Stadium show, and hometown fans were on the verge of filing a class-action lawsuit. Even Garth Brooks did better: He came out of retirement and quickly made Minneapolis the fifth city on his tour, ending a 15-year drought in one of his top markets with a flood of 11 Target Center shows next month.
It's time to hold the other holdout acts accountable. Leaving out the pipe-dream reunions (Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd) as well as the artists who rarely perform nowadays (Tom Waits, Björk, Kate Bush), here's a ranking of the acts most overdue to play a Twin Cities concert.
1. Radiohead
Last gig: State Theatre, 1997
Minnesota has never experienced the lords of British cool as an arena band, that's how long it's been. The quintet doesn't do long tours — generally just 10-city treks — but they managed to make it to a couple of other Middle America outposts, Kansas City and St. Louis, in 2011. Not cool, lads.
2. Stevie Wonder
Last gig: St. Paul's RiverFest, 1988
He's never been much of a road hound, but Lil' Stevie still keeps up a big enough performance schedule for Twin Cities fans to feel superstitiously cursed. He went 13 years between local stops from 1973 to 1986, and has since doubled that stretch. Not sure if it helps or hurts that he's playing Chicago's United Center Nov. 14.
3. OutKast