Pearl Jam Late Night Series Episodes

It’s our penultimate episode in our series that has focused on every single television performance the Pearl Jam has been a part of. For this one we go back to 2015, a bit of a slow year outside of South America shows, but the one show played in the states was the Global Citizen’s Festival. Pearl Jam headlined the event featuring a list of artists a bit unusual for them to play with (Beyonce, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran) and in promotion of that, they were guests on Stephen Colbert’s new gig on the Late Show that he’d only been doing for two weeks to that point.

We’ll talk about the choice to play Mind Your Manners at a time where maybe they could have been doing something fresher (I make a great suggestion and I’ll stick by it), the weird interview with the band where they didn’t even have to answer most of the questions, and then a really fun performance of Rockin’ In The Free World where Colbert offers up his chops and is the happiest man on the planet in that moment.

This episode is a biggie! Back in 2013 around the release of the Lightning Bolt record, Late Night with Fallon decided to put together not just one performance to promote the record, but a full week featuring Pearl Jam and artists paying tribute to them. We’ll talk about all 5 performances from that week, including Chris Cornell and the Avett Brothers doing Footsteps, Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes doing his take on Corduroy, Dirks Bentley accompanied by McCready and The Roots for Alive, and then to finish out the week, Pearl Jam stepped in to play both Sirens and Lightning Bolt. We’ll go through each performance and talk about the good, the bad, and the downright historic.

We have a bit of a jam packed episode for this Late Night show from Fallon in 2011. This is coming off the heels of a widely successful PJ20 festival and soon to be celebration of a 20-year anniversary movie, book and soundtrack. It was a good time to be a fan and the band was finally telling the story that we had all heard bits and pieces of in the past two decades prior.

So they go on Fallon to promote everything and decided as a gift to the fans, a new song was going to debut on television. But that song just so happened to be…. Ole. This is not necessarily a new topic around these parts, so we’ll clearly get into the conversation that needs to be had, plus how special it was that the band wanted to bring out something new here.

But that’s not all! They filmed three songs during that taping including All Night that would air the following night with The Roots accompanying them on backing vocals, and the first ever performance of Mother during the Pink Floyd tribute week.

But come on now… that’s not all. Because you see, there was a little problem in the Gulf Coast around that time where the BP oil spill caused major damage to the ocean. And that happened to create these little balls of tar that would bobble around in the water. So as a public service announcement, Eddie collaborated with Fallon to present a very special message to those who had planned to go swimming in the ocean. Find out more at 11.

This is the fourth and final time to date that Pearl Jam has been the guest performers on Saturday Night Live. We all know that there are some legendary performances from Porch to Rearviewmirror and Not For You which have made their history at SNL so special, but midway through the Backspacer era it felt as though some of that magic couldn’t be replicated again. But with that being said, we have two performances of Just Breathe and Unthought Known here that will get to having a few good conversations about.

Also, Pearl Jam made an acting cameo in this show! In a skit that parodies a famous Twilight Zone episode, Pearl Jam makes an appearance with Bobby Moynihan. Find out what their bit role was as we’ll dig into it in this episode!

In this Late Night Series episode, we’re talking about the pilot episode of the short lived time that Conan O’Brien hosted The Tonight Show. Conan had personally pegged Pearl Jam to be his first musical guest on the show, and to return the favor, the band gave his audience a taste of a brand new song that was set to be on Backspacer. We’ll talk a little bit about how that all came to be, and how Conan was robbed of his show by Jay Leno.

In this episode of the Late Night Series we’ll dig into two performances honoring the band the Ed grew up idolizing as a teenager, The Who. For a brief time in the early 2000s, VH1 put together a concert honoring some of the best rock bands in history. Influenced artists would be invited to play their favorite songs, in which this case Pearl Jam broke out two Quadrophenia favorites – Love Reign O’er Me and The Real Me. In this episode we’ll talk about Dwight Schrute, Boom not being invited, a brass section and the most perfect guitar smash of all time.

We have a jam packed Late Night episode for you! Not only are we digging into the late night show performance of Life Wasted, but we are covering the entire 10 song after show that took place in the Letterman studio! Only about 300 fan club members got invited to a show after the taping that showcased some of the brand new Avocado songs for a very early time live, as well as a few other fan favorites. To the disappointment of the crowd, Leash was not played on this night, but one song that was played changed the entire trajectory of how the fans see it today. Take a listen and find out which one I’m talking about, it’s an absolute classic!

We’re heading across the ocean for this Late Night Series episode to focus on Pearl Jam’s appearance on Later… With Jools Holland in 2006. Only weeks before the self-titled record came out, the band continued to do the promotional circuit, which in this case also led to a surprise show the night prior in which many Avocado songs were debuted. We get three great performances here, and an interview that reveals some thoughts about the band taking from inspirations and how they’ve changed since early in 1992. Enjoy!

We have moved along forward in our Late Night Series to 2006 where the band would make their most public television appearances since 1992. It kicks off with SNL and the live debut of two songs from the Avocado record – World Wide Suicide and Severed Hand. We’ll discuss the era a little bit as well as some of the disappointment within the director’s decision to produce these performances. Oh, and we have Lindsay Lohan as our host in one of her most prime tabloid years!

Here is the first Late Night Series episode of the year featuring the Masters Of War performance in 2004! We’ll not only discuss the performance, but we’ll tap into the era as well, one that was smack in the middle of a major Presidential election during war time. As they were about to embark on the Vote For Change tour, this Letterman performance was the first before they stopped at six swing state cities scattered throughout the midwest and south. We’ll also talk a little bit about Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 documentary and how the soundtrack used a version of this song. Enjoy!

The next appearance up in our Late Night Series comes from their promotion of the Riot Act album with not one, but two back-to-back performances on Letterman. I Am Mine and Save You were the two big songs that they were trotting out at the time, but it’s the era that’s much more interesting than the songs. As we’ve studied down this path through their broadcast TV lineage, there are all of these pinpoints where you can mark where the band was at in their career. Coming off an almost two year hiatus following the Roskilde tragedy and 9/11, the band had been out of the public eye, and it would remain that way for most of 2003 after Riot Act didn’t sell as well as the previous six records. They were in the weird stage of not exactly being a legacy band yet and not being anywhere close to feeling fresh. So they went out there and introducing an old Hawaiian organist while changing some important lyrics on Save You. It’s all here, enjoy the episode!

Ladies and gentlemen, here’s another late night episode for you! We’re fresh out of 90’s performances for you so let’s start to dip into the yeaaaar twoooo thouuuusand! A month ahead of the Binaural record release, Pearl Jam joined their favorite late night host and hall of fame inductor for the third time to debut a brand new song called Grievance. Since Nothing As It Seems was the first single that, just like Who You Are, drew away the casual radio listeners, just like their 1996 performance on the show introducing Hail Hail, they make an attempt to featured something that feels more like Pearl Jam. We’ll talk about the change of guard in the era and how Nu-Metal meant that Pearl Jam was completely off everyone’s radar, and we’ll always get into how Mike is starting to fully become himself and take ownership of that stage! Next month – two for the price of one. Save You and I Am Mine… cuff me…

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re back with another installment of the Late Night series! This month we’re looking into the Letterman performance of Wishlist from 1998. This one isn’t necessarily memorable for the performance, but it’s the official passing of the guard for the next era in Pearl Jam to complete the fivesome (minus Boom, Josh, Stuvered, etc) who have been playing together for almost 25 years. It’s Matt Cameron’s first live appearance for Pearl Jam only a year or so after Soundgarden split up. This goes hand in hand with our weekly episode as well emanating out of Rapid City from 1998, which happens to be Matt’s 6th full show with the band. We’ll discuss the transition from Jack, Matt’s overwhelming workload before going out on tour and his unaverred confidence on the first time out. See you next month for the Letterman 2000 performance of Grievance!

Ladies and gentlemen, we’re back with another installment of the Late Night series! This is the first of many episodes in a row where we’ll cover the band playing The Late Show with David Letterman. This is the first one, and it’s interesting because it’s not solely focused on the just the one performance. Obviously everyone knows the friendship that Letterman has built with the band from all of these appearances to the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall Of fame induction, but it all started because Letterman couldn’t get a specific song out of his head – Black. For weeks and weeks in early 1996, he begged Paul Schaffer every night for the band to play Black. Then he started to beg for Eddie to swing by and sing it. These went on for weeks and weeks until Ed finally showed up and did it. We’ll run through the entire timeline of that story and why it’s never good to watch people talk about you on TV while you’re high. Of course we’ll end up getting into the Hail, Hail performance as well, mostly to discuss Stone the traffic cone, but also a ripper of a performance that may go down as one of the best versions of the song of all-time.

In our fifth installment of the Late Night Series, we’ve approached possibly their most important moment on television and maybe one of the most important ever. SNL 1994 happened at a pivotal time and a turning point in the band’s history. Only a week after the passing of Kurt Cobain, Pearl Jam was thrust into the spotlight and seen as part of the healing process from Kurt’s death. For that, they were given the extremely rare opportunity to play three songs that night. Something that acts like the Rolling Stones and U2 have done before, but not many others. The result? All three performances are mind blowing. Especially Rearviewmirror, which is one of the best overall Pearl Jam live cuts ever. This also came at a time where, unbeknownst to them, Dave Abbruzzese’s time with the band was coming to an end. There’s a lot to discuss in this one including some rehearsal moments that we have access to. All you need to know is that Pearl Jam is fabulouso!

In this episode of the late night series, we look back on the 1993 Video Music Awards performance where they premiered Animal for the first time in a public setting, and had Neil Young join up for Rockin’ In The Free World. Only a little more than a month before the release of Vs. and Pearl Jam is starting to creep back into the public eye. However, not without resistance. Being on top of the world wasn’t what the band had in mind, and all of this media sensationalism got the best of Ed. We’ll go through both performances and why Ed isn’t very camera friendly, but the rest of the band, and Neil, more than make up for it.

We’re back with our third episode featuring extensive and exclusive coverage of Pearl Jam’s late night performances. In this one we’ll discuss the important Bob Dylan 30th anniversary show broadcast on PPV where Mike and Ed performed Masters Of War. It was on this night that the guys mingled with some of the legends of rock n roll, names that would be synonymous to the story of Pearl Jam such as Neil Young and Tom Petty, as well as George Harrison, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed, Johnny Cash and the voice of a generation himself – Bob Dylan. We’ll talk about a conversation between Eddie and Bob that potentially changed the entire landscape of Pearl Jam, as well as one of Ed’s greatest vocal performances in this tremendous Masters Of War.

Welcome to a brand new series that we’re featuring on Live On 4 Legs! In this series, we take an in-depth look into Pearl Jam’s stints on late night TV. Everything from award shows to band tributes to plenty of Letterman appearances promoting new albums, it’ll all be covered extensively. These are classic performances that sort of stand alone in Pearl Jam’s pantheon, and since our focus is usually dedicated towards full 30+ song setlists, we needed to create an opportunity to give these big moments the Live On 4 Legs treatment they deserve. This is the second episode of our brand new running series that focuses on the 1992 MTV VMAs. After an Unplugged performance for the ages elevated this band to the height of the Grunge phenomena, Pearl Jam was the hottest band in the world. They had just released a new music video for Jeremy that debuted to instant rave reviews due to its controversial subject matter and imagery, but you couldn’t turn on MTV for five minutes in September of 1992 without hearing the song. Invited to perform at the TV station’s less than prestigious award show that rewarded music for their visual art, they made a conscious effort to suggest performing a song that wasn’t their brand new hit, but with major pushback from the network, they didn’t get their way. The anger seemed to fuel Ed during this performance as we get one of the most vigorous and intense versions of Jeremy ever played.

Welcome to a brand new series featured for our Patrons! In this series, we take an in-depth look into Pearl Jam’s stints on late night TV. Everything from award shows to band tributes to plenty of Letterman appearances promoting new albums, it’ll all be covered extensively. These are classic performances that sort of stand alone in Pearl Jam’s pantheon, and since our focus is usually dedicated towards full 30+ song setlists, we needed to create an opportunity to give these big moments the Live On 4 Legs treatment they deserve.

The pilate episode of this series will focus on the band’s first of four performances on SNL. Taking place back in 1992 before anyone had actually witnessed what transpired on MTV: Unplugged, this was Pearl Jam’s first opportunity to present themselves in a live television setting. They were up for the opportunity and in typical PJ fashion they blew everyone away. A performance of their first single, “Alive”, would wet the appetite before coming out with an intense and memorable “Porch” to conclude their stay. We’ll talk about the performances, some of the band’s mannerisms on camera and of course, we’ll tackle Ed’s controversial, statement making t-shirt.

Since this is a podcast focusing on a TV series, I get to say BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! After you finish with this episode presented exclusively through the Patreon platform, episode two will be available for you to check out on our regular podcast platforms! Check out our episode on the 1992 VMAs featuring the intense and memorable Jeremy performance. This will be the only such occasion where we split the series between platforms as the rest will only be found through Patreon!