Podcast Episodes

On June 30th, 2000, Pearl Jam headlined the Roskilde Festival in Denmark while touring Europe for their Binaural album. About an hour after they took the stage, there was a sudden surge towards the front. Multiple fans lost their footing on the muddy terrain, and some were trampled. The outcome is one of the worst tragedies in live music history as the lives of nine fans were lost. This incident permanently changed the lives of each member of Pearl Jam, and everything from that point forward about their live show changed. From heightened security, to a renewed sense of empathy and compassion, their goal was to ensure that nothing like Roskilde would ever happen at one of their shows again. They’ve made good on that promise.

On the 25th anniversary, we look back and examine the stories and healing process that followed in the aftermath. Part two takes a look at the band’s return to Copenhagen for the first time since the tragedy, how general admission at shows would slowly be reinstated over time and powerful performances of Black and Love Boat Captain played at pivotal moments where they paid tribute to the families who lost loved ones. You’ll get to hear from our esteemed panel who will share their personal stories of how they reacted to the incident, and will discuss why sticking together was always the best and only option for the band.

Make sure you check out the part one episode of this series if you wish to hear this story told chronologically.

On June 30th, 2000, Pearl Jam headlined the Roskilde Festival in Denmark while touring Europe for their Binaural album. About an hour after they took the stage, there was a sudden surge towards the front. Multiple fans lost their footing on the muddy terrain, and some were trampled. The outcome is one of the worst tragedies in live music history as the lives of nine fans were lost. This incident permanently changed the lives of each member of Pearl Jam, and everything from that point forward about their live show changed. From heightened security, to a renewed sense of empathy and compassion, their goal was to ensure that nothing like Roskilde would ever happen at one of their shows again. They’ve made good on that promise.

On the 25th anniversary, we look back and examine the stories and healing process that followed in the aftermath. We’ll share powerful performances of songs from the 2000 tour and how Eddie’s song writing at that time was impacted by the incident. Joining us on this episode is author of the PJ20 book, Jonathan Cohen, to bring perspective to the story, and we invite Pearl Jam community members on to share their personal stories, including witnessing the band at their Virginia Beach show, and one of the nine live performances of Arc.

Please stay tuned for Part 2 which should be released shortly after the release of this episode.

The 1995 tour was one of the most tumultuous for Pearl Jam in their history. Their Ticketmaster boycott was in full effect, so while shows were more affordable for their audience, tickets were tougher to acquire and venues were at a premium. Eddie at this time is dealing with struggles of being in the spotlight, and instead of opting to travel with the band, he spins records in a van driving from location to location on tour. There are historic shows that happen on this run like Red Rocks and Soldier Field, but everything comes to a head when they reach San Francisco. The night before the show, Ed comes down with a case of food poisoning and needs to take a trip to the ER. After getting IV fluids, he is still completely sick when it comes show time. However, he goes out there, makes it through seven songs and then walks off the stage no longer capable of playing. This episode looks back 30 years later after the infamous incident at Golden Gate Park.

As luck would have it, Neil Young happened to be there that day originally slated to make a guest appearance prior to the Mirror Ball record’s release three days later. While it was certainly a huge benefit to have him on hand in a desperate time of need, the crowd paid to see Eddie. They were restless throughout the entire set having to sit through unreleased songs off a brand new record in an unfathomable heat for San Francisco. For as incredible as the band’s efforts were in this moment, winning over the crowd was a fruitless task.

This is a jam packed episode with a lot to talk about. We’ll cover the era and how the fallout from this show just narrowly avoided a break up, we’ll talk about the crowd’s reactions, Eddie’s struggles and some of the oddities in song selection that included not one, but TWO versions of Rockin’ In The Free World! We’ll also invite our good friend, Mar Vigil, on to discuss what it was like to be there on that day.

Ten years ago, Pearl Jam headlined a festival called the Global Citizen’s Festival in Central Park where the mission was to raise funding in order to end world poverty. They were joined by the likes of Beyonce, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Sting and others who wanted to get this message across. It was their only US show in 2015 and was broadcast on network TV, something that Pearl Jam hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to do in their history.

The 12-song set certainly has it’s highlights. For one time one time only, Beyonce got to share the stage with Eddie for a performance of Redemption Song. It’s not something that’s gone over well across the community over the years, but we’ll give it it’s due and discuss the connection the two of them were able to make on stage together. The other big moment from this show is Ed getting to tell the origin story of Unthought Known, having wrote it in a hotel that overlooked Central Park. We’ll also talk about Big Bird, pirate rabbis, dating origin stories and why Bill Nye should probably stay away from rock ‘n’ roll stages.

We invite our Patron, Richard Green, on to talk about his personal experience at this show, and if you stay tuned until the end you’ll hear a eulogy for a loved one who left us too soon.

The final destination on Pearl Jam’s spring 2025 tour will be Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a city that’s no stranger to big time shows. Although they haven’t been back there in 12 years, there was a time where the Steel City saw it’s fair share of shows. From 1998-2006, there were five shows played, every one of them memorable in their own way. This episode covers their 2006 show from the Mellon Arena that kicked off the second leg of the North American tour that year with the band and the crowd so hot that the nearly melted the igloo.

Sometimes you’ll notice that certain Pearl Jam cities are known for having a song that’s connected with them. For example, people usually connect Wash with Pittsburgh due to the umbrella moment in 2000. But at this show, another song developed a connection as they covered the Rolling Stones Waiting On A Friend for the first of a small handful of times. It was done to pay tribute to the Stones after opening for them at PNC Park the year prior, and it’s a moment that the Yinzer crowd is proud of. Other great moments that we’ll talk about include a monstrous Release to kick things off, an incredible version of Black with an It’s OK tag, Stone’s smokin’ solo on RITFW and a plethora of Avocado songs that were kicked in high gear during this era. We’ll also discuss how songs like Inside Job and Smile have continued to grow and become fan favorites throughout the years.

We run down the entire setlist, but you’ll want to stay tuned to stories from Javi’s Nashville trip where he met not one, but two members of the band. You won’t want to miss it!

Next up on the Pearl Jam 2025 tour is a stop in Raleigh, North Carolina. This is a destination that hasn’t been played since this show we’re covering in 2003, but that was never originally planned to be the case. On the 2016 tour, a show in Raleigh was cancelled due to the band’s opposition to the HB2 law that discriminated against transgender people. It was something that caused a bit of commotion within this fanbase, and we’ll get into all of what happened nine years ago, but after the bill was overturned the band felt they needed to make it up to this Raleigh crowd. And if this 2003 show is any indication, they might be in for a good one.

2003 is a favorite tour year for many due to the band truly elevating their game to the next level. Setlists started to become very fan friendly and collector heavy, Mike McCready became the showman that we know of him today, and no two shows were even close to the same. If you like Riot Act heavy shows, this is a good one for you. The deeper cuts such as Help Help, Cropduster and You Are are brought out here and all sound fresh for the same. Save You, I Am Mine and Love Boat Captain are also major highlights from this show, and you can tell which ones are gonna stick around throughout the duration of this North American run. There’s also a great run at this show featuring four straight Vitalogy era songs, and we’ll get into why these songs together may feel like a mini rock opera.

Check out the episode for the full rundown of the setlist, a little talk of what’s been going on out on tour and a few stories from the Florida shows and the 2003 Evolution yips! If you want to stay updated on our full analysis of each show on tour, make sure you’re subscribed to our Patreon for our instant reaction episodes!

With the 2025 tour up and running, we’re heading to our next destination – the home of the Braves in Atlanta, Georgia that hasn’t seen a Pearl Jam show in nearly 13 years. This episode will cover the last time that they played in the Phillips (now State Farm) Arena back in 2000 that they will be returning to this week. We’ll talk a little bit about the history of Atlanta shows that of course will mostly include one of the greatest Pearl Jam shows of all time in 1994.

This show was given the distinction of being an Ape/Man show, which means it was one of a few handpicked shows that the band recommended that fans give a chance to when the official bootlegs were all released in stores. A lot of our conversations will be us trying to determine if they made the right decision selecting this show. There are definitely performances that stand out. For Crazy Mary, it was the first time that they ever passed a bottle of wine around during the jam. It’s also the first appearance of the Romanza intro for Better Man that got played for the majority of 2000. We’ll also dig deep on Binaural era tracks Nothing As It Seems, Breakerfall and Rival that we almost never get to talk about.

Find out if we think that this one was worthy of the Ape/Man tag. Also to note, this episode was recorded prior to the start of the tour, so if you’re looking for in depth analysis, head on over to our Patreon to check out the instant reaction episodes for both Hollywood, Florida shows!

Welcome to tour week! Pearl Jam is back on the road hitting the southern United States as a follow up to their 2024 Dark Matter run. Like we always do for every tour, we’ll be covering some of the locations that they’ll visit as our episodes all month, starting with south Florida representation featuring a Fort Lauderdale show from 1996. Their history in Florida to that point had featured some very notable shows such as a Vote For Change show in Pensacola, one of the best quality bootlegs from St. Petersburg and a show from Miami that caused a riot. This No Code era show may not have had fans storming the gates, but it was a strong showing from the band in a unique venue for them.

With the Ticketmaster boycott still in full effect, they opted to play at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, a soccer stadium meant to only seat 8,000 that crammed in 24,000 for this show. This was not a venue known for music, and we’ll discuss a little of that in the episode. We’ll talk a lot about some great performances of this era, and highlight some of the great moments featuring Jack Irons. We’ll dig into excellent renditions of In My Tree, Corduroy, Porch, Immortality and spend a little time talking about how they did it all with Jack without the use of count-ins.

It’s time to hit the road! Check out this episode to get you prepped for everything tour wise, and find out more details on how you can listen to our instant reaction episodes that we’ll release after every show!

We’re one week away from the start of Pearl Jam’s 2025 tour, and as we have come to know over recent years, anything can happen at a Pearl Jam show. This show from Amsterdam in 2022 is an excellent example of that. After suffering vocal damage from wildfire smoke in Paris, Eddie was not cleared to sing in the three shows following the incident. Shows in Vienna, Prague and the first night of Amsterdam were canceled, leaving doubt that the planned second show would take place. However, Ed was able to take the stage without being at 100% and still put on a show to remember.

You can say that this show was the beginning of a new era for them. There were stools on the stage to open as the band would play the first five songs seated. This was something that the band would bring forth into the next two tour years in order to ease themselves into a set to prevent Ed from over-exhausting his voice. This section proved to set the tone for a night full of surprises and deep cuts as Nothing As It Seems opened the show for the first time since 2000, and W.M.A. made a rare appearance in the set. With Ed needing some vocal help, he sought the rest of the band for respite as we got to hear Stone sing Mankind, Mike and Matt tag team on KISS song Black Diamond, and Josh wailing away on Purple Rain.

We invite our friend, Lori Jernberg, on for this episode and hear her stories of attending the show and dealing with the cancelation the night prior. Check out this episode to wet your appetite before the band makes their way out on tour!

1994 was a notable year for Pearl Jam as they spent March and April touring the midwest and the northeast in support of their Vs. record. During this time they were arguably considered to be the biggest band in America, which meant that tickets for their shows were in high demand, but it was mainly due to their decision to play smaller venues. As it was tougher for fans to get their hands on tickets, scalpers were starting to become an issue. This show we’re covering comes from Purdue University where the big story is centered around scalpers and a situation that led to a bomb threat being called in prior to the show’s start.

While the bomb threat was certainly a scare in the moment, all it did was motivate the band. Once it was safe to go back in and start the show, they brought their a-game to the stage. These performances define the intensity of the era as nearly every song features Ed’s screeching vocals piercing through the speakers, Stone’s hypnotic groove finding it’s sweet spot, and Mike’s superior talent on display. We’ll discuss some of the best of the era such as Go, Animal, Daughter, Black, Garden and Porch. We’ll also get a taste of Vitalogy with very early performances of Tremor Christ and Not For You.

We’re two weeks away from our first show of 2025, so we’ll kick off the episode with some of our thoughts about what’s happening in Pearl Jam world at this current time, and we’ll talk about a man who goes by the name Frank X who may or may not be a lizard king faking his death!

We’re sticking with a show from recent memory as we inch closer to the kickoff of the 2025 tour for Pearl Jam, and that’s exactly what we’ll cover tonight – a tour kickoff. It took them nine years to return back to the home of the Minnesota Wild in St. Paul, and to make it up to the north star fans it was the first of a two night stay. Javier was in attendance for this show, so he’ll share stories and recount memories from the night, including the surprise opener to get the tour year started in a big way.

The phrase “set the tone” gets tossed around a lot around here when a song can be an indication of how the night would go, but in the case of a song like Indifference, opening with it set the tone for the entire tour year. It was the indication that everything was going to be on the table, whether it was messing around with song placements, to playing songs that have been no where near the band’s radar in years. A song like Insignificance that got played at this show for the first time since 2016 is a great example of how far they were willing to push their limits. Even as the tour went on, we got to hear tunes like God’s Dice, Green Disease, Marker In The Sand, Undone, Out Of My Mind, Unemployable and Who You Are get added to the mix. So in retrospect, Indifference was a much bigger moment than the shock value of beginning the show with it instead of ending.

We’ll also spend a lot of time on this version of Love Boat Captain. This song was ranked the #1 moment of the 2023 tour on the Live On 4 Legs countdown, and it’s due to it’s heartfelt tribute to the Hawaii wildfires that ravaged the islands that summer. Check out our discussion on this version about how Ed always meets the moment when it comes to dealing with tragedy, especially one that hit so close to home for him.

This is a very special episode that we have for you this week, because for the first time in six years, Pearl Jam finally returned home to play a show in Seattle. Not only that, but it was both Randy and Javier’s first time witnessing a show in their hometown. It was a week of celebration as the city featured so many fun events in connection with the band, and what made it memorable on our part is that we had such a great group of friends to experience it with. From visiting Seattle grunge landmarks, to signing massive flags and pre-gaming at local bars, this is one of our favorite traveling experiences. Which is why we have invited our group of friends who all stayed together at a BNB in striking distance to Climate Pledge Arena on this episode to talk about how meaningful it was to all of us.

While the six person conversation will certainly take up a healthy chunk of the episode, we will dig deep into this awesome show from last year. There are special moments featured here that a year later we look back on very fondly. The last five songs in the main set – Upper Hand, Waiting For Stevie, Man Of The Hour, Satan’s Bed and Rearviewmirror displayed perhaps one of the best set runs that Pearl Jam had in all of 2024. We’ll spend a lot of time on Man Of The Hour, which was already a highly emotional moment due to the tribute to the late Bill Walton, but was also incredibly important to the hosts from this night. While the end of the main set was killer, the end of the encore has tons of talking points as well with a modified rendition of All Along The Watchtower, the first appearance of Yellow Wing (a mashup of Ledbetter and Little Wing) as well as one of the final times to date that Setting Sun has closed a show.

For all of you old school Live On 4 Legs fans, this will take you back to older episodes as the total run time on this exceeds two hours, but there’s no lack of stories and celebration for a show that certainly deserves it’s flowers!

In the nearly 7-year history of Live On 4 Legs, there are only 4 states which have had Pearl Jam shows that we have yet to cover – Arkansas, Iowa, Rhode Island, and now we can officially cross Oklahoma off of that list. The Oklahoma City show from 2022 was the penultimate show of the Gigaton tour. After a year’s long battle dealing with band members getting covid and Ed having throat problems that forced cancelations, the end of the September leg was a huge celebration and a relief for being able to get through the final leg unscathed. This OKC show emphasizes the kind of fun and comraderie that radiates from the stage whenever the band is feeling spirited.

Some of the topics we’ll dig into for this one include the debut of Garden as a show opener, whether a song like Alright will ever get a shot in a setlist again, our outpouring love for Hard To Imagine, the band no longer upset that their city stole the Sonics, getting distracted by a hot dog, Corduroy closing a main set, if Go needs to go, and best of all – a truck full of vibrators! We’ll also preview the brand new Live On 4 Legs tour documentary entitled God’s Dice, A Pearl Jam Tour Story about the canceled shows in May of 2022. It will be available to watch on our YouTube page on Friday March, 14 so please make sure you subscribe so you can find it!

Everyone knows that Seattle is Pearl Jam’s hometown city, but just like Chicago is a hometown city for Eddie Vedder, so is San Diego. Not just that, but it extends to both Mike McCready and Matt Cameron as well. So any time that the band gets to travel to San Diego, there’s no doubt that you’re in for a special show. In 2006, that’s exactly what happens. The band played with their pants on fire and every song had high octane energy as the hometown crowd was treated to something special.

The main story from this show took place at the top of the encore where Ed paid tribute to his former drama teacher, a man named Clayton E. Liggett, who Ed had a theater created in his name. He told the story about finding out the night he passed away during the Mirrorball sessions. After hearing of the news, he went back into the studio and started to strum his guitar with the opening chord of what would become Long Road. We’ll talk about how important this moment was when looking back on the history of this band, and we’ll also share our own personal stories of how teachers have impacted our lives. There are so many ways we can all connect to Ed, and this story is transcendent due to his vulnerability in sharing that.

There are also some big time performances at this show. The first four songs of this show from Oceans to Brain Of J. set the bar incredibly high for the night, and then incredible performances to follow such as Even Flow, You Are, Satan’s Bed, Inside Job, Rearviewmirror with a Life Wasted inspired improv, Crown Of Thorns, a big time Alive solo and the debut of Big Wave. We’ll spend the episode discussing which 2006 shows best define this era and if this show deserves to be in the conversation. Is this a candidate for the Live On 4 Legs hall of fame? Tune in and find out!

This our first of many episodes this year celebrating 25 years of Pearl Jam’s excellent Binaural tour from 2000. This was the first tour year that the band produced bootlegs of every show that could be easily attainable at any big box or local record store. You may have seen on some of these CD’s a little icon that features a silhouette of an ape and a human. These shows were a part of the Ape/Man collection, which were specific shows that the band selected as stand outs from this tour. Tampa is an Ape/Man show, and they were absolutely right to use the moniker for it.

This was the seventh show on a bit of a tumultuous first leg run in North America. Taking place shortly after the Roskilde tragedy, a few of the early shows had some unease and tension on stage, but for this night they were able to compartmentalize what happened to put on a phenomenal shows with boundless amounts of energy. Eight Binaural songs are played at this show, including a handful that are incredibly rare to hear today such as God’s Dice, Evacuation and Sleight Of Hand. We’ll talk about how this era sounded sonically where the band, specifically Mike, put heavy emphasis on utilizing pedalboards more than any tour year to that point. You’ll hear a lot of that come through in songs like Nothing As It Seems, the Daughter jam and Rearviewmirror.

This is a great show that should be on everyone’s list to listen to, and we hope to guide you in that direction! Also in this episode we’ll talk about the Last Exit mishap, hydraulic machines and one of the strangest things that Ed’s ever uttered at a Pearl Jam show, which will bring up a semi-obscure reference to a King Of The Hill episode.

In 2005, for the first time in their history, Pearl Jam took the trek across the entire nation of Canada visiting many cities and provinces for the first, and for some the only time. While the band had been no stranger to Montreal, this night in the city of saints was special for reasons beyond the stage. It was the one-year anniversary that a dear friend and founding father of punk rock Johnny Ramone had passed away. The entirety of this set pays tribute to the man who Eddie Vedder considered one of his best friends and heroes.

From the start of the show with Release, you are able to tell how difficult it was for Ed to get through it with many emotions bubbling to the surface. There are stretches of songs in this show ranging from songs that Johnny loved such as Corduroy and Last Kiss to songs that dealt with the themes of death and loss such as Light Years, Sad and Man Of The Hour. There are even two Ramones songs played here as we’ll get to hear I Believe In Miracles and a tag of I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend that occurred at the end of Better Man. And this may surprise many of you, but there are not one, but two Cat Stevens covers played at this show. Believe it or not, there is a connection there with Johnny Ramone, and we’ll share that as we discuss the set.

Tagging in here to help out with this episode is one half of the Hallucinogenic Recipe podcast, Patrick Boegel, who was in attendance for this show and will share his memories involving a Fresh Canadian Rastaman. We’ll also dig into Eddie’s recent performances on the SNL 50 Homecoming special and how Ed, Jack White and others did a great job paying homage to the history of the show.