April 29, 2025 – State Farm Arena, Atlanta, GA, USA

Pearl Jam Show Notes 4/29/2025:

Can’t Keep returns as an opener. Its only the third time it’s been played in the last 11 years, and the first song to be played in Atlanta at all in 13 years. It’s been a long layoff between Atlanta shows, with the last non-festival show happening in 2003. There were numerous technical issues throughout the evening. Several times, McCready’s guitar cut out on audio, sometimes for extended periods. Jeff was particularly animated and jumping around stage all evening. After Given to Fly, Eddie does a quick check-in with the room, asking “you guys good out there?” pulse-check before they hit the gas again. Before Wreckage, Ed gets distracted by something in the crowd, calling out that “someone’s got a big stick,” then trying to figure out what it is, asking if it’s like a crutch and then asking again what kind of stick it is. He says he’s not going to worry about it for the moment, but notes it’s an odd thing to have in a large crowd, adding that as long as it doesn’t have a trigger, he guesses it’s okay. He pivots briefly to the nearby group, telling them to be safe and commenting that she looks fine, then does a quick aside asking “do I know you?”, and when she says yes he jokes that he doesn’t believe her. He closes the bit with a general warning to “be careful with the long pole,” calling it good advice for anyone. After that, Eddie thanks Atlanta, says he was admiring Stone’s guitar work, then talks about Stone putting the next song together 35 or 36 years ago, back before Eddie met them, when it was Jeff, Stone, and Matt. He then gives Even Flow an alternate title, calling it “Keyfob in a Car Park.”

After Even Flow, Ed says Mike met someone who specifically requested the next song. He calls the person he’s dedicating it to one of his biggest heroes growing up, says he was a huge hero in Atlanta when Ed was a kid and still is, and identifies him as number 44, Mr. Hank Aaron and starts into Unthought Known. Daughter includes a tag of Dead Moon’s It’s OK. After Dark Matter, Ed thanks the crowd for listening and liking the new ones. Not For You includes a tag of Sleater-Kinney’s Modern Girl. Severed Hand appears in the penultimate main-set slot, usually reserved for their bigger hits. After Severed Hand, Ed asks for the house lights so he can find a kid named Isaac in the crowd, saying he’s been noticing a lot of young folks up front. He explains he got a note from a boy named Isaac’s mom, Jennifer, and tries to locate them. He fumbles a bit on Isaac’s age, then cracks a side note about another kid nearby who’d better start playing guitar tomorrow if he wants to play like Mike McCready, and asks if he can toss a tambourine over so it gets to Isaac. He then shifts gears and says what the band does onstage took more guts 30 years ago when they were shy and unsure, but Isaac has more guts than all of them because he’s been through so much and is still there tonight. Without putting Isaac on the spot, he calls out people who’ve marked themselves as organ donors on their license, saying that choice is exactly what keeps good people alive and helps them heal. He thanks Isaac for being a living example and sends love from the band.

To begin the encore, Eddie says a fan traded him a jersey and he traded back a bottle of wine, then gives a shout to crew member Simon (from Dublin, Ireland) who helps him out. He introduces the next song as a Warren Zevon song, says Zevon played Atlanta a lot and liked playing there, and that the audience should know some of his songs, but even if they don’t know this next one it’s special because it’s the last song Zevon wrote – Keep Me In Your Heart. There’s a very clear intro to Spin The Black Circle:

“Alright, we have a song about records and record machines and record players and black vinyl and colored vinyl and Third Man Records.”

Alive is introduced as “one of those songs we played back in Lollapalooza 1992.” After, Eddie thanks Georgia, then does band introductions, including Jeff  and noting his wife Pandora has just landed in town. He then talks about the Rock ‘N’ Roll Hall of Fame and says one of them is being inducted a second time, congratulating Matt Cameron for being inducted with Soundgarden. Various members of the band play snippets of Soundgarden songs like Outshined, Superunknown and Spoon Man, and Ed pops a bottle of champagne handing a cup over to Matt who drinks it with a massive smile on his face. Ed checks in with the crowd after Baba O’Riley and asks if they want one more. The night closes with repeated thanks and a simple sign-off, sending “much love from the northwest to the southeast,” telling the crowd he loves them, wishing them good night multiple times, saying they’ll see them next time, and ending with “Goodbye…It was fun.”