Pearl Jam Fan Report From The Road: Oakland Night 2 2022

Waking up after a show that kept us guessing all night long more than usual, my travel pal Jason and I were completely enthralled with the possibilities in store for us in night 2 in Oakland. The pinch-hitting of Klinghoffer/Stuverud/Arroyo for the COVID-quarantined Cameron had us all wondering, what would happen tonight? So many high profile drummers in California…could we see Jack Irons or Chad Smith take the hour flight up for the Friday shows?! Time would tell…

For so many, music and sports share a common theme of being ultimate stimulants to get all sorts of emotions out. The more expectation and/or importance of a concert or sporting event, the more amped up that fan base can get. Then, when you mix both of those things on the same day, you can get an unprecedented amount of dopamine released. The most famous example from the Pearl Jam tour catalog would probably be the ’09 4-show run closing down the iconic Spectrum in Philadelphia, the same nights the Phillies were playing across the street against the Yankees in the World Series. On this Friday the 13th, the Bay Area was electric with their dynastic Golden State Warriors playing host to the Memphis Grizzlies in a game 6 playoff game while Pearl Jam fans prepared for the unexpected in the Warriors old arena.

A bunch of us met up at the Mad Oak in downtown Oakland, which was packed with nothing but blue and yellow jerseys with a large sprinkling of PJ tour threads from yesteryear. As we all intermixed, I got to talking with a new friend of a friend named Russ. We started shooting the casual music breeze, and he mentioned that he used to work at Murphy’s Bleachers behind left field in Wrigleyville, which also happens to be a favorite haunt of our collective friend, Ed. Moreover, Russ was the one who provided EV with many beers and the actual Murphy’s tee that he wore in 2016 for one of the Let’s Play Two shows…very cool stuff.

Having scooped a ticket off the 10C message boards from another new friend, Jeremy, we headed off to the show! Throw Your Arms Around Me got us a feeling like this would be a very unique gig once again and there was no disappointment when Klinghoffer – and later Richard from Lazy Susan and RNDM – reprised their roles to kick off Long Road.

As amazing as it was to see the band the night before, besides the Gigaton tunes there were no personal “lost dogs” that I hadn’t heard already. I was scratching for some deep cuts. I didn’t have to wait long as I was able to close out hearing all of Ten when they played Once and then all of Vs. when they played Dissident a few tunes later. Happy camper in Section 117. With drum duties split up again, the highlights for me with the two drummers were Richard’s brilliant playing on the full version of W.M.A., and Klinghoffer going full Keith Moon on Brain of J. Holy hell. McCready took control on Immortality->DTE->State of Love and Trust and it was great to see Rearviewmirror return to its end of the main set spot.

Encore! Smile stands out here, and it was great to see Boom get more of a sweat tonight with a blazing Better Man into Crazy Mary.

Great show. Here’s to the rest of a healthy, yet unpredictable, summer and fall tour.