Podcast Episodes

In this episode, we venture into a part of the country we have yet to touch – Salt Lake City, Utah! As the band’s Ticketmaster boycott prevented them from playing marquee venues in 1995, they often found themselves in challenging scenarios playing shows in obscure places. While the capital of the 45th state may not be totally obscure, it’s strange to look back and say they did a two night run in Salt Lake City. But there’s a reason for that. During June of the original tour run, they had to postpone their show slated to take place at the original outdoor amphitheater in SLC due to weather concerns. The band would say they’d return and play twice as many songs, which led to this excellent November stretch packed with five memorable shows.

The Utah shows are seen for being somewhat of a gateway from the Vitalogy era into No Code. During the first night, they’d debut Red Mosquito, and at this show, Brain Of J. would make it’s live debut. We get a chance to look into the changes made in the song and decipher why this was held back and re-recorded for Yield in it’s form most common to us. We’ll also get a ton of Vitalogy era Jack Irons infused jam sessions to talk about, including extended versions of Not For You, Corduroy and Immortality.

We’re back yet again at the Key Arena to continue our year long Seattle Hometown series. This show in 2013 was big. It was the tour closer for a tour that reinvigorated a lot of energy back into setlists bringing back songs that they hadn’t played in years and changing up format in order to fulfil longer shows. Since this was the closer in Seattle, they knew that they were going to have to bring their a-game arsenal. A whopping 36 songs were played making it an instantly memorable evening. A few talking points during this show include an appreciation for Pendulum as the consistent opening track for this tour as well as an appreciation for the 3-song slowburn startup that frequented setlists this year. We’ll dig into how 2013 was a big year for rarities and at this show they brought out one of the rarest of the rare. Let Me Sleep was played once back in 1994 at a Bridge School show, it took them 613 shows before playing it again on this night. Also special from this show is a trio of songs from the Singles soundtrack played in a row for the only time. With 36 songs, it has a been stage atmosphere and while a podcast may not do the visuals justice, the lasting images of Ed and Mike dueling on Better Man and Ed being lifted up on one of the orbs are the big points to remember from this show. Thanks to our Patron, Drew Vipond, for making the request!

If you were to take a guess as to what venue Pearl Jam has frequented the most over the last 30 years, would you think Shoreline Amphitheatre is the correct answer? If not, then you’re wrong. 17 of the performances in the San Francisco area amphitheater came from the Bridge School benefits, but this episode will happen to cover a show played there in 2003. As of most nights from this era, there are some politically motivated moments seeped into this evening. From a pro-activism speech during Porch to a few references to some of the bay area war protests that happened that February, it’s not difficult to see what’s on the band’s mind. However, it being the second leg of this US run following the Nassau Coliseum incident, things are a lot more composed. As long as people didn’t fuck with The (Dixie) Chicks, Ed was in good spirits. Tune into this episode to check out great versions of Long Road, You Are, Daughter, Thumbing My Way, Present Tense, Love Boat Captain and an out of this world Crazy Mary. Potentially the best of all-time? One host’s opinion may reflect that. Thanks to our Patron Ryan Morden for joining us and selecting this show for us to cover!

This episode takes a look into a show on the Yield tour from Hartford, CT that was the follow-up show to one from Madison Square Garden that many consider to be among the best of all time. While much of this episode is Randy stepping up to his soapbox to profess his love for shows in his home state, it’s also taking a key critical factor in Pearl Jam touring and asking the important question – is the band OK with having a down show immediately after playing one for the ages? With Hartford being sandwiched in between two big cities, you’d think it would be an opportunity for the band to possibly take the night off. Whether they do or not is a discussion in itself, but you’ll have to listen in to hear what Stone thought about this show in particular.

We’ll react to Stone’s quote and try to put the pieces together as to why maybe this isn’t a show that many people go back to from the era. It certainly has moments. Breath, after famously being brought back for the first time since 1994 at MSG, is played once again. Alive and Porch at the end present a situation where Ed had to manage the security team, because how dare those Connecticut fans dance in the aisles. And there are great versions of Do The Evolution, Daughter, Spin The Black Circle and Brain Of J all packed in. Was this a lull show? You’ll just have to tune in to find out!

A festival show is on the docket as we take a look back at the first night Pearl Jam performed at Austin City Limits in 2014. ACL is always an eclectic festival weekend, but this year had the band headlining alongside Eminem and Outkast, which on paper doesn’t seem to be their scene. But the reunited Replacements would go on before them, which would lead to a nice tribute during the Daughter tag. While this is kind of what you’d expect from your average festival sets, there are moments worth going back to in this such as the extended intro version of Love Boat Captain, a touching dedication during the Come Back performance, and we get a Danny Clinch appearance on Red Mosquito. With apologies to all Texans who’s state finally has representation on our podcast for the first time in three years, but also, someone might’ve called them sensitive.

We’re heading back to an era that has gone nearly untouched in the Live On 4 Legs pantheon. In 2009, the Backspacer album was released and subsequently toured for. Although somewhat polarizing in retrospect, people thought highly of the album at the time and considered it to be Pearl Jam’s return to their “true rock ‘n roll roots.” Yet of the eleven tracks the album bares, the band rarely goes back to many of those songs that were getting attention then. As a podcast, these songs have seen minimal coverage possibly thanks to that. This episode will continue the Seattle hometown series featuring a show that was considered to be the Backspacer era’s maiden voyage taking place only a day after the record was released. As mentioned, a lot of music critics and journalists hopped back aboard the Pearl Jam bandwagon when this album came out. Was it due to the album being exclusively released at a big box store like Target? Or could it possibly have been because the George W. Bush administration was out of office and the album seeing a fresh, positive outlook for the first time since Yield? Whatever the case was, the band was clearly feeling good about their recent production, continuously pushing songs such as Got Some and The Fixer along with the family oriented love song Just Breathe. But this era also hosts a few of those songs that have absolutely disappeared from the Pearl Jam live repertoire such as lead-off track Gonna See My Friend, Johnny Guitar and Ed solo track The End which we’ll cover the debuts for in this episode. But this era also led the way for a few classics that we continue to hear today such as the aforementioned Just Breathe and Unthought Known. Since we are coming off a month where Gigaton songs were finally played for the first time in 18 months, we’ll make some comparisons to how these new songs fit in with the setlist to how the Backspacer songs ended up. Seven O’Clock is seemingly on the projection of an Unthought Known made to be a nightly hit, but what songs can we compare Retrograde and River Cross to? All of that, plus a few good personal stories mixed in for this one.

On it’s 25th anniversary, we present you with an episode on what’s considered to be a top 10 Pearl Jam show of all-time- Randall’s Island! Having to book non-Ticketmaster venues, this muddy, massive open field was their best option in order to play in New York City. In with that marks a 32-song instant classic that many northeasterners have noted to be their first ever Pearl Jam show. Ed made the crowd a promise after playing the previous night that this would be the best played and longest show in their history, and they certainly made good on their promise. The show didn’t go off without it’s issues as very early on there was a desperate plea for crowd control. A performance of Animal was stopped midway through in order to calm things down, but the situation continued to be addressed during the first chunk of songs. Also in this show, we get the last ever appearance of No Jeremy, a rare rendition of Rats played by Jack Irons, Long Road in the encore, and so much more that made this night memorable. However, the most memorable moment is likely this version of Porch where Ed duct taped his entire body, jumped into the crowd and gave one of the most iconic speeches in the history of the band.

Last month we gave a lot of love to the 30th anniversary of Ten, which by no means was meant to ignore the 25th anniversary of No Code. This episode gives love to the record and the era as we dig into a revved up show from Toronto that was essentially the tour starter. Coming off their memorable David Letterman performance the night before, the band looked forward to playing their brand new songs in front of a crowd that wasn’t their hometown. The result? A 22-song banger of a show that had the band at the top of their game. The new songs such as Hail Hail, In My Tree and Habit blast through the speakers, but it’s also some of the Vitalogy era stuff that Jack Irons absolutely thrives on such as Tremor Christ and Immortality. We go a little old school LO4L on this one and get in depth with every individual performance!

In this episode, we continue our year long 30th anniversary Seattle hometown series with a tune up show from 2002 that took place shortly before the long Riot Act tour in the proceeding year. The band was slowly returning to the public eye for the first time since the end of the tumultuous Binaural tour, and in the two years since that run, the world had completely changed. In the wake of 9/11 was an impending war with Afghanistan that would transition into a war with Iraq that the band vehemently opposed, and would express their opposition to on the Riot Act record. The Riot Act songs are in their infancy of live performances with most of them only being played in between two and five times. We’ll spend some time talking about the crowd’s reaction to these songs and why some of them took a lot quicker to attach themselves to (I Am Mine, Save You, Love Boat Captain) while others maybe didn’t click as much at first (Ghost, Thumbing My Way). But we’ll also get an early appearance of the George W. Bush mask routine during Bu$hleaguer. Another big talking point of the episode is about The Ramones and their presence in the music world at the time. Earlier that year, Eddie, donning a newly buzzed mohawk, inducted The Ramones into the Rock ‘N Roll Hall of Fame. It came a year after the passing of Joey, and two months later, Dee Dee would die from a heroin overdose. With Johnny’s health in decline, artists at the time were eager to share how The Ramones had influenced them over the years with Ed at the forefront of all of it. We’ll talk about their impact on the music world and how many artists were looking to keep their legacy alive after losing two original members in such a short amount of time.

This first night of PJ20 weekend was stricken with bad weather that put a bit of a damper on the show, but they followed up with a Sunday night performance that was one for the ages. While the first night had some song inclusions from the deep cuts in their catalog, it was missing a familiar flow that give Pearl Jam setlists balance. Night 2 has more of those setlist staples intertwined while giving you more of the uncommon tracks that you can cross off your checklist. But just like the night prior, the band invited a handful of guests from the opening acts to join them, including Chris Cornell, who reprised his role in the Temple Of The Dog reunion. We’ll talk about how this show is a true celebration of Pearl Jam and their anniversary, calling back to important moments that shaped the band such as Roskilde 2000, the San Francisco 1995 incident and the Bob Dylan tribute show where they met Neil Young for the first time. This was all about embracing their history with the inclusion of their friends who helped them get to where they were.

We’re sitting here in year 30 of Pearl Jam about to look back at when they celebrated their 20th anniversary, which happened to be 10 years ago. Whatever equation you want to make of it, the massive weekend event at Alpine Valley was one of the biggest events to that point in Pearl Jam’s history. It was set to be a celebration of the band’s longevity featuring the most loyal group of fans. Friends such as Glen Hansard, Mudhoney, Queens Of The Stone Age and The Strokes all flew up to rural Wisconsin just to be there for this moment. A weekend that would forever be etched in… nope. The rain came pouring down and any prestige that was to come from that night was heavily tainted. However, the show went on as promised and was extended due to the nature of the evening. Pearl Jam went through the gauntlet of their entire catalog through songs that had never been played, In The Moonlight and Setting Forth, to songs that had almost never been played, Education and Help, Help, while trying to scatter the fan favorites such as Breath and Not For You (feat. Julian Casablancas) throughout. But the night will forever be known for the surprise appearance of Chris Cornell for a Temple Of The Dog reunion. As a crowd member on this night, Randy will have a lot to say, probably a lot more than you’d expect him to. But he had been dying to do a podcast on this for just about a decade, cut him some slack. It’s like one of the old school episodes of LO4L, so strap on in and prepare yourself for a long one!

It’s the 30th anniversary of Pearl Jam’s debut, and most important album, Ten. So we’re celebrating by taking a look back at one of the most treasured shows of the past decade, the night where they played the entire album in front of a frenzied Philadelphia crowd. It was the fourth of five full album shows in a two-year span that was fueled by a banner raised to the rafters of the Wells Fargo Center honoring the band’s 10 consecutive sellout shows in South Philly. From the time that you hear the iconic opening riff of Alive as the third song in the set, you can tell that the crowd was astounded that they were there to witness history. We’ll go in full depth on the entire album’s recreation from this night and some oddities that came with it that made the setlist flow so unique in itself. Moments such as getting songs like Even Flow, Alive, Porch and Release all happening outside of their positioning’s that we’ve grown so accustomed to. Oh, and we’ll also talk about the consolation prize set, which wasn’t so bad itself, but could never reach the same height that the album’s presence provided.

Batting second in our Murderer’s Row lineup is this tremendous show out of Boston from 2010. Shows in the Boston or Massachusetts area are usually notable in this band’s lineage, but what made this stop on the Backspacer tour important was the myriad of rarities they brought to the table that night. With every album accounted for, the band dug deep into their catalog to pull out songs that some may have thought they’d never play again. And some they haven’t! A song like Undone that hasn’t been played since that date has only five performances, songs like Rival, Push Me, Pull Me and Bee Girl also find their way into the setlist. We’ll spend time on these as well as the Backspacer tracks that might be a little stuck in that area. Is it weird eleven years later to see tracks like The Fixer and Got Some in highlighted roles? We’ll answer that question!

In this episode we’re going back to those eventful few weeks back in 1994 to cover the show AFTER the iconic Fox Theatre Atlanta show. How would the band follow up that momentous performance? We’ll talk about some early versions of Vitalogy classics, and a wild encore that comes out of nowhere! We’ll cover it all with guest co-host Anthony Krysiewicz (Touring Fan Live), and we’re also joined by Patreon donor Matt Behan, who attended this show as a college student and shares a story at the end that you won’t want to miss! All this plus Ohana Encore news and talk of possible new music?!