April 24, 2025 – Hard Rock Live, Hollywood, FL, USA

Pearl Jam Show Notes 4/24/2025:

The opening night of the 11-show 2025 tour emanated from an intimate venue at Hollywood, Florida’s Hard Rock Casino. This is their first show in Florida since the 2016 tour. It was a difficult ticket to acquire as the venue held room for only 7,000 patrons, about half the size of a normal Pearl Jam arena show. The stage at the venue was too small for the titanic video screen that the band had been using on the 2024 Dark Matter tour legs, so they opted with a smaller screen instead. Being close to the beach, the show and tour appropriately kicks off with Oceans as you can feel the band with a pep in their step after not being on tour for five months. Present Tense to follow that up was lively with incredible energy from crowd and band alike. Ed belted the impactful lines with furious passion as the band thrashed all over the stage. After Why Go, Ed talked about playing to 50,000 people in Australia a few months back, and while that felt great, a place like this feels really great. He quips “I feel lucky, I feel lucky in a casino and that’s dangerous” before rolling into Deep.

Three Dark Matter songs are played consecutively keeping up with the mid-set theme from 2024 setlists, and afterwards, Ed asks the crowd if there’s anyone who’s never seen the band live before. He introduces them to Mike McCready and says that after not playing since December (it was November) he’s itching to play right now. This of course leads to a soul crushing rendition of Even Flow. The intro of Down needs to be halted due to an issue in the crowd, but when they jump back into it, it’s a fun, energetic version. After Corduroy, Ed makes a toast to Matt Cameron and says they were invited to play this venue by the Seminole tribe of Florida. Before the show, the tribe honored the band for their work with the indigenous people throughout the country, mainly Jeff Ament, who has built nearly 42 skateparks on reservation land for years. He mentions that Jeff was given the name “Holds Water” by the indigenous community for his continued support. After Won’t Tell, Ed says they are gonna play one they don’t normally play, which ends up being Leatherman. Leatherman was also played at the tour opener in Vancouver in 2024. Prior to Lukin, Ed shares a story from being on tour in Florida in 1992. After stopping at their hotel, he went down to the beach to read a book. Here’s what happened:

“I was a bit tired, not really sleeping through the night and I passed out. Woke up a couple hours later resembling a piece of.. What would you call it? Crispy bacon. We were playing the Cameo Theater in Miami. It had this little overhang, so I climbed up this thing and I jumped off. The feeling of 260 hands scraping your sunburned back was very memorable. That feeling, it felt like this sounds…”

The combo of Lukin and Porch close out the main set with the video images of the latter still presented as a rearview mirror for whatever reason. Midway through the solo, Ed asks if this room is ready for lift off, then goes to the top of the platform leading the crowd in a call and response moment before the massive ending. After the encore break, Ed comes out with his shiny red Telecaster given to him by Tom Petty. He acknowledges himself on screen wearing a Hawaiian shirt and said he didn’t realize how much he looked like Jimmy Buffett before saying kind words about him posthumously. He plays I Won’t Back Down for Petty, his favorite Floridian of all time. Footsteps is played via request for a fan named Chris who had been in a coma for months and not expected to survive. Once he got out of the coma, his friends tried to get him to the Fenway Park shows the year prior, but his health prevented him from going. However, he was in attendance with his friend Mike to hear the request get fulfilled. The band performed a powerful rendition of the song seated the entire time.

The biggest surprise of the show came when the band performed So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’ Roll Star for the first time in fifteen years. Written by The Byrds, this is one of their lesser played covers with this rendition played for just the eighth time in their history. As he’s done in the past, Ed took the song’s bridge to send a message to the crowd:

“It’s one thing to be a bunch of guys, girls, people of the same makeup. If you like them well enough to think ‘do you want to start a band?’ I would recommend that to anybody looking for a way to express themselves and communicate, I would recommend starting a band. Just for fun. Just to feel the power. So that’s one thing just to have some fun, but can I just say to have been given the opportunity to be a band together for 34 fucking years and to be supported by you all and people like you all. People all over the planet who let us hopscotch all over the world just to play our music, and you’ve made friendships up here that we couldn’t have had without you. We just cannot thank you enough for the support you have given us after all these years.”

Ed says normally we wouldn’t play this right now, but we’re gonna take this request from Mordecai, or anyone who has a birthday or a sore knee or whatever else. The request is Crazy Mary (which is, in fact, normally played in this spot). Midway through the song, we have another incident in the crowd as a young woman is attended to. Ed during this time is handed a jersey that reads Crazy Mary with a number 10 on the back. Wine is being passed around the crowd, something that was not happening regularly during covid era shows. The solo duel is so intense that it leaves Mike flopping down on the stage at the song’s end.The set ends with show stopping versions of Alive and Baba O’Riley, and to close out the show… finally! For the first time since the first leg of 2024, Setting Sun is once again the show closer. Mike puts on one of the jackets given to the band in the Seminole Tribe ceremony prior to the show, and Setting Sun brings a sense of warmth and finality to the 2025 tour opener.