2022 Pearl Jam Tour Reaction Episodes

Sorry for the wait on this one! But hey, we had some instant reaction episodes that were released only hours before the show ended, this one needed seven days. Thanks everyone for your patience. Denver is the tour closer and it allows us some time to reflect on things that happened this year, both personally for the band and setlist wise. We put out a plea for a 2023 tour and a new album, hopefully there’s a good chance something big is on the horizon.

As for the show itself, it certainly paid homage to the long road that they were on from the time of the 2020 announcement up until it finally ending that night. There are multiple tributes to the fans, many dedications and great memories that will last from this one. We’ll talk about the future for Gigaton songs and which may have a chance to move on to the next tour consistently. And I’ll go on a heated rant about how big a piece of shit that Alex Jones is.

Hope you’ve enjoyed these! It’s a pleasure producing them for you all. Stick around to find out the next content that will be available through our Patreon very soon!

Sad to say it but we are not coming in live for this one. Our time on the road has come to an end, but there are two more shows that we’re ready to talk about! OKC is the penultimate show of the tour, and as Ed has said in the past it’s not the last one that you want to be at, it’s the second to last. This setlist sure proved that point.

We’ll talk about the first time Garden was ever opened with, how that and Hard To Imagine have seen a major resurgence this year, a possible swan song for some Gigaton tracks, how wild it was to see both Habit AND Alone on the same setlist, Backspacer sneaking it’s way in on it’s anniversary and… dildos.

While we weren’t there, we promised you guys a story from the road featuring my adventures acquiring a backstage pass in St. Louis. I tell the tale and look back fondly on this wonderful trip that we’ve been privileged to take and see most of you on. One more, let’s hope Denver is a good one!

John (sans Randy, for reasons that will become clear later) is joined by some patrons and special guests for a very special TWO-PART reaction episode to breakdown everything that happened in St. Louis tonight. An epic, high-energy show with an outstanding crowd and plenty of deep cuts (Sad! Sad!!! SAD!!!!). Highlights include a ukelele getting smashed, another thunderous Retrograde, Life Wasted, Corduroy, I Am Mine, State/Breath, Black, and more! It’s the end of our run of shows but we’ll have reaction episodes for OKC and Denver the next day, so stay tuned for that. And look for much more of Randy’s story to come in the next day or so…you won’t want to miss it, trust me.

Randy and John are once again reacting live minutes after the show ended to talk about Bourbon and Beyond. From opening with Daughter, Low Light, and Off He Goes to In Hiding, Quick Escape, Garden, a stellar Not For You, and much much more. Thanks to patrons Chris Everett, Patrick Boegel, and Bradley Piasecki for joining in and commenting as well. Enjoy this and we’ll talk to you again tonight after St. Louis! #smudge #iheartspicypie

Randy and John are live outside Bridgestone Arena minutes after tonight’s Nashville show ended to talk about everything that happened, including sooo much Vitalogy, an early Black, and much much more…some of our patrons were on hand and we talk to them as well. See you in Louisville tomorrow!

Randy, Matt and a host of friends chime in from the parking lot on what just went down along the Delaware River. Pearl Jam cranked out a stunner of a 27 song set as we pass the half way mark on the final leg of 2022 Gigaton Tour.

We’re back with another live instant reaction from outside MSG minutes after the show ended with Randy and Patrick from Hallucinogenic Recipe to break down everything that happened at another epic show on this tour. Opening with Release into Garden, an early Porch, and some beloved cover songs (Sonic Reducer! Chloe/Crown!), hope you’re enjoying these and thanks for continuing to support the show! Our Breath campaign didn’t come to fruition but we really appreciate everyone’s support…on to Camden!

Straight from under the marquee after one of the most unique and specialized shows in the history of Pearl Jam at the legendary Apollo Theater, we get to react live to everything that happened inside. While Randy could not find his way inside the building, our good friend and Hallucinogenic Recipe host, Brian Horwitz, was lucky enough to get in and be able to tell the story. We discuss the atmosphere of the 1,500 theater, the technical difficulties that transpired, the unbearable heat inside, and some of the great stories told throughout the night. Enjoy this one!

Going old-school Patreon here to give you guys the instant reaction from outside the venue in Toronto with Randy and some friends. The show had just ended and we jumped in to record our thoughts on another great night. We got a cover we’ve never heard before, the Beatles’ Her Majesty, Rearviewmirror makes another appearance, along with a couple of Neil Young hat-tips (including a Cinnamon Girl tag not done since 2011), an aborted take on Leash, and lots of super performances. Enjoy Randy and friends LIVE from Toronto!

Welp. We ended the last episode with a plea to get Sad to be played in Toronto after being scratched off the first two shows. However, I guess the band has better plans for my birthday present on Thursday, because Sad finally made the set tonight. It was an excellent performance, but yeah the first ten minutes of this episode is basically addressing that situation. But after I get all of my personal gripes out of the way, I have nothing but glowing things to say about this show and I’ll go out of my way to call it a top 5 show so far this year. The top 5 as far as the setlist goes was dynamite. Yellow Moon and Man Of The Hour were excellent, and Oceans was a good indication that the rules were kind of out the window on this night. We get to talk about the impressive set, a concern for Stone and any and all plans for a birthday celebration in Toronto! Hope to see you there!

Show number 2 in Canada here, and now we have a good idea of what we might be expecting this month. This was a really good show in Ottawa on a Saturday night, we got to see the top 5 in the same fashion as Quebec and then we got a mix of the expected hits and a few nice additions. We have a lot to talk about, mainly the set still being an early tour set and we’re still kind of waiting for a breakout (Toronto!) but still great to hear songs like Garden and Throw Your Hatred Down. I’ll also make a plea for you all to help me get something played for my birthday in Toronto! …please? And also, what the hell is this band doing with Corduroy that makes very little sense? Enjoy the show!

Here we go! The third and final leg of the 2022 tour year is under way, and we got a nice kick off in Quebec City last night. As we saw at the end of Amsterdam, the band went back to that five-song sit down open, with five songs that I don’t think anyone would have expected to be in that part of the set. Daughter was opened with for only the fourth time in history, and speaking of four, we heard the fourth performance of extremely rare Lost Dog, Other Side. We’ll talk about those cool moments, Ed’s voice, some of the changes in the encore, a great Off He Goes, some dedications and something completely irrelevant to anything that happened in the set. Strap in, the first of 12 is in the books!

The last week has been filled with disappointment for Pearl Jam fans. One canceled show after another, it was tough to wake up in the morning or arrive to the arena and hear the news that Pearl Jam would not be playing. After Vienna, Prague and the first night of Amsterdam, they had one more shot to make this work. Luckily enough, Ed’s voice had been given the green light and the show proceeded as scheduled. Although it was promised from the beginning that this would be a very different show than anything they’d ever done, they came and delivered on their promise. An electric sit-down set to start, a few requests and rare songs and then the big guns that Ed had to adjust his voice a little bit to pull off made this night as close to an instant classic as there is on this tour. And everyone got a chance to sing! Lot’s to cover, last one until we come back in September! Enjoy! (Edit note: I may have said Mike McCready didn’t get a lot of moments and I clearly failed to give a nod to Nothing As It Seems. Rare L I suppose)

Nobody ever wanted this. Especially twice during the touring year. But here we are. We were so close to the finish line, only four more dates left before closing the chapter on this European run, and as we saw in California, the van broke down on the way to the arena. They actually let people in the building this time before an announcement was made. It’s heartbreaking, but furthermore, you now have to put into consideration that this is part of the deal moving forward. We know that they aren’t getting older. Bodies wear down after a tour like this, and it makes it all the more difficult that families couldn’t attend this time around.

This reaction is an honest discussion of what the future may look like for Pearl Jam. How can they prepare a tour moving forward that isn’t going to cause them to cancel mid-way through? What options could they consider to make it work? Who will be effected in the long haul? We’ll also talk a little about the fan reaction and how YOU should prepare for shows and traveling moving forward. It’s not a happy one, but it had to happen. Hope to see some good news for Prague.

The European tour is winding down to it’s final week and there’s only four shows left! This stop took them to the capital of France, the city of lights and one of the most romantic cities on this planet – Paris! A Lollapalooza show with an eclectic line-up led to a crowd that may have seemed like a mix bag in comparison to normal Pearl Jam shows or even other festivals. Did you know that Instagram models were there for good vibes and photo ops?!? Anyway, just like most shows on this tour, we have a decent mixture of the routine songs that are mixed in every night or every other, but then we have a couple of unexpected surprises. Satan’s Bed makes a really rare appearance here, and after Rearviewmirror’s inexplicable absence, Go would be the next one that you’d think absolutely needed to be played. We’ll check in with all of that, and maybe a little on climate change.

Ahh finally! The conversation since London had once again turned into a ‘where’s Rearviewmirror’ conversation. We shared numbers, we shared milk carton memes and you guys responded sharing the same position. Now we finally got it again. It feels like a breath of fresh air that an old friend came back to visit. The set up and anticipation for it with Porch at the number 2 spot and then waiting during the killer main set to see if the band heard our voices, when it happened, it was cathartic. I’m not sure if the band and team pays attention to us, but enough voices put it out there and it feels like we sent a message that was received. Good on you! This show isn’t all about RVM, we’re gonna dig into the five Gigaton songs that were played and how what’s happening in Ukraine impacted a lot of the themes of this show, culminating in a massive performance of River Cross. And Hard To Imagine! Hard to imagine that! This is a big one, enjoy it folks!

After the big memorable weekend in London, Budapest was the next on the bus schedule. It’s unfamiliar territory as Pearl Jam hasn’t played there since 1996. But just like we saw in the last time Pearl Jam played in a city where they haven’t returned to in a while, they get all of the songs they’ve missed in that large span of time! Wash opener! Brain of J (grrr)! TWO from Riot Act! and of course… the return of SLOW LUKIN! Lots of conversations to have here, even if the video was sparse. We’ll also return to the never ending conversation of where’s Rearviewmirror? Helping us with a little RVM guitar tutorial is Branden Palomo from the Better Band Podcast! Also, another PJ pod host joins us as Chris Warne from Ventricles Pumping shares his experience and favorite moments from this show!

Prior to this tour overseas, the shows that everyone had marked on their calendar as being the ones to look out for were both nights in Hyde Park. We got them this weekend, and boy did they deliver! This reaction episode zeroes in on both nights as we tackle all of the big moments from Better Man being a surprise opener, to some of the songs we may have thought were out of rotation such as Breath, Rats and Leash, and then a powerful dedication out of Light Years and an extremely impassioned speech on gun violence prior to Throw Your Hatred Down. What show was the better of the two? Help us decide because it’s nearly impossible to choose! Also, we’re gonna talk about merch in this one for the first time in these reaction shows!

A two for one special as this episode will include recaps of both the Stockholm and Copenhagen shows. These shows have a deep range of emotions, reacting to what’s going on in our world from continued gun violence to America losing abortion rights, as well as returning back to the country where the most challenging tragedy of their lives took place. We’ll get heavily into those topics, but also some discussion about people’s observations of the setlists up to this point. And songs, songs are included in these conversations because if they weren’t, we’d have absolutely nothing to go off of. Enjoy!

We’d all circled this one when the tour was announced…June 30th. How would the band acknowledge what happened 22 years ago at Roskilde? They took the stage late in the evening and opened with back-to-back covers for the first time in nearly 30 years. John is joined by Dave JanTausch from livefootsteps.org to break down everything that happened at Rock Werchter 2022. We’ll talk about the politics of playing Whipping and Daughter, Ed’s speech before Long Road and the moment of silence that preceded it, and continue to put up missing notices for some Gigaton songs that seem to have disappeared. Plenty of stat talk for you stat nerds out there as well. Enjoy, and onward to Stockholm!