Pearl Jam Toronto Concert History

List of Pearl Jam Concerts in Toronto, ONT, CA

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September 8, 2022 – Scotiabank Arena, Toronto, ONT, CAN

Main Set: Daughter/(Improv), Come Back, Sometimes, Her Majesty, All Those Yesterdays, River Cross, (Interstellar Overdrive)/Corduroy, Hail, Hail, Deep, Quick Escape, Even Flow, Who Ever Said/((I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction), I Got Shit/(Cinnamon Girl), Never Destination, Dissident, Lukin, Rearviewmirror

encore 1: Light Years, Do The Evolution, Last Kiss, Jeremy, (Leash), Alive, Rockin’ In The Free World

Show Notes:

The improv on Daughter is based around the line “it’s in my hands.” After Sometimes, Ed says he’s going to play one he “borrowed” from Paul McCartney, and he plays the Beatles’ “Her Majesty” for the first time, no doubt…

Show Notes: 

The improv on Daughter is based around the line “it’s in my hands.” After Sometimes, Ed says he’s going to play one he “borrowed” from Paul McCartney, and he plays the Beatles’ “Her Majesty” for the first time, no doubt a tribute to the Queen who had died earlier in the day. Prior to Even Flow, he sees a sign that says “I (heart) U Eddy” and he points out the misspelling, referring back to a show in 1993 where there was a sign propositioning him that used the same incorrect spelling. He then mentions the Elton John show taking place in the city that night and sings a tease of Tiny Dancer, saying he always heard the line as “…count the head lice on the highway,” and then jokes about Mike’s mishearing of the line in Kiss’ “Rock And Roll All Night” as “…and part of every day.” Cinnamon Girl returns as a tag on I Got Shit for the first time since 2011! After the break, Ed talks about being in Canada and says that one of his favorite tours was the 2005 run. Someone has a sign for EB and Ed again talks about how the band is committed to helping find a cure and how it’s “a matter of time.” There’s another banner, this one says “Play Light Years for Gord,” Gord Downie being the singer of the Tragically Hip who passed away in 2017, and the request is fulfilled. Last Kiss is played to the back, its first appearance since 2018. Stone starts Leash after Jeremy but breaks a string and the song is aborted in favor of Alive. 

May 12, 2016 – Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON, CAN

Main Set: Why Go, Corduroy, Mind Your Manners, Brain of J., Animal, Garden, I am Mine, Nothingman, Cropduster, Even Flow, Daughter/(Blitzkrieg Bop/W.M.A.), Green Disease, Unthought Known, Present Tense, Alone, Lightning Bolt, Do the Evolution, Blood

encore 1: Just Breathe, Oceans, Inside Job, Breath, Lukin, Porch

encore 2: Last Kiss, Last Exit, Better Man, Crazy Mary, Black, Alive, Baba O'Riley, Yellow Ledbetter

Show Notes:

Jeff is wearing a t-shirt that reads “WE THE NORTH WEST,” a running theme started at the first Toronto show two nights before. The greeting comes before the callback in Corduroy with “welcome to the last show,” describing it as…

Show Notes: 

Jeff is wearing a t-shirt that reads “WE THE NORTH WEST,” a running theme started at the first Toronto show two nights before. The greeting comes before the callback in Corduroy with “welcome to the last show,” describing it as feeling like the “last day of school, let’s make a night of it.” During Brain of J., Jeff ducks and then laughs as Ed rushes to catch something dropped from above. After Animal, Ed says “good things been happening in this building in the last couple days,” in reference to the first Toronto date and the NBA playoff game the previous night, and toasts to being able to play the last show in Toronto. Following Garden, Ed mentions the victims of the forest fires in Alberta and Manitoba evacuated days earlier and that the band will continue to “send some dough their way” from concert proceeds, and dedicates I Am Mine to “being safe and secure, however temporarily.” Good crowd participation during Nothingman. After Cropduster, Ed explains the origin of the line “let the fluency set it down” as coming from drinking wine with an Italian who didn’t speak perfect English, he figured he was trying to say “‘go with the flow’ or something…but then I thought ‘that’s really kind of amazing,’ so I’ve been letting the fluency set it down for quite some time now.” He goes on to tease about most big cities having their own “monument or erection…of course, you here have the band Rush, that’s a monument…we’ve been playing for 25 years and if we wanted to learn a Rush song we’d probably have to play for 25 more,” to which Mike plays a few chords of “Fly by Night” followed by Jeff and Matt with “Cygnus X-1”. Ed returns to monuments/erections by citing the Space Needle and introducing Even Flow as being written right below it. A drum solo by Matt tops off another impressive solo performance by Mike. Ed switches the lyrics to “white male Canadian” during the W.M.A. tag. Prior to Alone, Ed thanks the crowd for their singing and teases “Right now we’d like to play the whole Binaural record for you.” Ed promotes EB research funding during the break and thanks Dr. Elena Pope at the U of T-Hospital for Sick Children for signing onto the effort. On being shown a French flag, he recalls the terrorist attack at the Eagles of Death Metal concert in Paris the year before and dedicates Just Breathe to a fan and victim, Pierre-Antoine Henry, and his kids. Breath is dedicated to their friend Michele (Anthony), who “specialized in working with difficult artists, and we wouldn’t be here without her.” During the Porch breakdown, he lifts up his guitar under a stage light and uses it to reflect light onto people all throughout the audience. The second encore starts with another compliment, “you make it very difficult to leave,” before trolling the audience with “whatever happened to the Toronto Maple Leafs?” During Better Man, Ed holds the song in a loop and banters for three minutes about looking forward to going home, having just taken a quick shot of tequila backstage, a driver on the first stop of the tour speaking offensively, the contrast between that start to the tour and the end in an exemplary city. Boom is introduced before Crazy Mary, Mike jams alongside him on a fiery solo while Ed enters the crowd to mingle. Toronto native Donna Grantis is again introduced to join the band for Baba O’Riley (after also playing at the previous show), and Ed acknowledges Geddy Lee at the side of the stage, to which the band plays a bit of Cygnus X-1 again. Ed signs off with a personal “see ya, JP” to a fan he sang Thin Air with at the first show, before addressing the entire crowd: “We the northwest, a pleasure being in the north,” and signs off as Geddy Vedder one last time.

Written by: Eric Stevenson Gonzalez

May 10, 2016 – Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON, CAN

Main Set: Go, Do the Evolution, Mind Your Manners, Breakerfall, God’s Dice, Evacuation, Light Years, Nothing as it Seems, Thin Air, Insignificance, Of the Girl, Grievance, Rival, Sleight of Hand, Soon Forget, Parting Ways, Corduroy, Once, Rearviewmirror

encore 1: Imagine, Let Me Sleep, Comfortably Numb, Even Flow, Down, Better Man/(Save It For Later), Porch

encore 2: Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Given To Fly, State Of Love And Trust, Black/(Time Heals), The Real Me, Alive, Rockin’ in the Free World

Show Notes:

Crowd erupts as the intro of Go is played just like on the album. A thunderous Mind Your Manners precedes the Binaural set, with Ed mentioning that they have the next night off (the second Toronto date was pushed back…

Show Notes: 

Crowd erupts as the intro of Go is played just like on the album. A thunderous Mind Your Manners precedes the Binaural set, with Ed mentioning that they have the next night off (the second Toronto date was pushed back a day by their NBA playoff game). He then talks about how the first time in Toronto they played seven songs, and then auctions how many they’ll play that night, “nine, 10… can I get a 13… 18 in the back.” A longer solo from Mike on Breakerfall helps tear open the album set. Evacuation is introduced with a reflection about fire alarms and expecting to be told it’s a false alarm, remembering the over 88,000 people evacuated days earlier due to wildfires in northern Alberta. Ed introduces Thin Air by explaining that it’s one of his personal favorites of Stone’s: “if we ever had a popular song, this would be the one” and describes how he’d imagined a love song-style video. Near the end, he visits the crowd, takes a fan’s hand, and puts his arm around him while they both sing the last chorus together, essentially recreating his idea for the video. Back onstage, Ed quips “What’s your name? JP? Meet you after the show, handsome.” Ed enters Sleight of Hand too early, Stone stops playing immediately and Ed gestures to the band to start over while pointing to himself to accept the blame, then turns back and tells the crowd “the thing about vinyl records is sometimes they skip…let me clean the needle.” The song is restarted and finishes strong. Soon Forget is prefaced with “it wasn’t written about anybody in particular…now I realize it’s exactly about Donald Trump” before going on to muse about the band moving to Canada and Ed changing his name to Geddy Vedder in honor of Rush. The crowd whistles back at the “we’re all whistling” line and Ed eggs them on, hanging on to that chord. Ed holds out the last note in Parting Ways for several seconds amidst guitar feedback, pick scraping, and resolute drumming. Corduroy has an extra burst at the end, and a breakdown jam on Rearviewmirror featuring a Jeff and Matt standoff. The second set opens with Ed checking on the crowd and counting off all their good memories of Toronto, including all the other bands they’ve seen play, and joking about how good Soundgarden’s drummer was as a prelude to introducing Matt. Here he announces the band will donate money from their Canada shows to help wildfire victims in Alberta and lists the benefitting groups, before asking the audience to light up the room with their phones for the cover of Imagine. Let Me Sleep is played as a nod to the cold. Even Flow picks things back up and sounds like it has an extra groove to it: Mike puts the guitar behind his head and ventures out to the crowd for the first part of an extended, feedback-laden solo that earns Ed’s applause, and Ed tosses the mic into the crowd for fans to sing the last chorus. Down is dedicated to Howard Zinn, “the ultimate ‘positimist,’ that’s not a word, but….” Ed teases the crowd with a long pause and a swig of wine before a sustained “ohhh-oh-oh” to open the second verse of Better Man. Matt, Jeff, and Ed fling, headbutt, and practice boxing with the lamps that have lowered to stage level during Porch, and give the first encore an amped-up finish with Ed mingling in the crowd and sipping a fan’s beer. Ed starts the second encore with the observation “if they got a crowd tomorrow with this much energy tonight they might win it all” and identifies the band and Toronto as both being from the north: “there’s power in north, north points up.” After Given To Fly, Ed calls everyone’s attention to a fan who’s spent the entire show in a bright orange ski mask and references having worn one at a show by Jeff’s band RNDM but “I didn’t last three songs in that fucking thing…I commend you” and jokingly introduces the fan as Matt Damon (who was evidently in attendance in a different part of the arena).. Black winds down with the Todd Rundgren “Time Heals” tag. The Real Me is introduced by Ed saying “We borrowed a couple of great songs tonight, we’re gonna borrow one more.” Toronto native and Prince guitarist Donna Grantis is welcomed onstage to close the show with Rockin’ in the Free World and steals the show, earning a “we’re not worthy” bow from Mike.

Written By: Eric Stevenson Gonzalez

September 12, 2011 – Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON, CAN

Main Set: Go, Animal, Ole, Hail, Hail, In My Tree, Sad, Dissident, Setting Forth, Corudroy, God's Dice, Deep, Garden, Wishlist, Even Flow, Present Tense, Rats, State Of Love And Trust, The Fixer, Porch

encore 1: Last Kiss, Just Breathe, I Got Id/(Cinnamon Girl), Light Years, Jeremy, Why Go

encore 2: Do The Evolution, Alive, Kick Out The Jams, Baba O'Riley, Yellow Ledbetter

Show Notes:

Fresh off of an incredible show the night before where Uncle Neil came out for a 11 minute version of RITFW, the band came out, and with no words spoken, launched straight into Go followed by Animal. At this point,…

Show Notes: 

Fresh off of an incredible show the night before where Uncle Neil came out for a 11 minute version of RITFW, the band came out, and with no words spoken, launched straight into Go followed by Animal. At this point, it would be reasonable for most of the crowd to be thinking they were about to get Vs. in full, but then Eddie introduces the next song as a new one before playing Ole. After Hail, Hail, Ed addresses the crowd:

“Good evening, it’s our last night here in Toronto, Ontario. The first time we ever played here was October 29, 1991. That night we played seven songs. Tonight we’re gonna play at least eight, maybe nine, maybe sixty, or somewhere in between. But either way, we’re going to pace ourselves. Thanks again for filling up the room like you did, we don’t take it for granted.”

Continuing with No Code, the next song is In My Tree followed by Sad and a great version of Dissident that showcases the guitar interplay between Mike and Stone. Ed talks about the Toronto International Film Festival where the PJ20 documentary was shown along with films about U2 and Neil Young. He recalls that the first time he attended was when he provided the soundtrack to Into The Wild, leading into a performance of Setting Forth. Before God’s Dice, Ed mentions that Jeff wrote it while high on something. It’s a particularly special version of this song because of the confusion that takes place after the second verse where Eddie expects to go into the chorus when the rest of the band is going into the bridge. It results in a low key jam that allows them to get on the same page and resume. They admit they fucked it up and joke that it was only their third or fourth mistake in twenty years. Ed suggests they may fuck up Deep as well since they don’t play it often. There is some great interplay between Stone and Mike throughout the song, particularly on the intro. Another mix up happens in Garden before the first chorus, once again leading to an extended jam. Wishlist is dedicated to a local fellow, Toronto Maple Leafs legend and recently inducted Hockey Hall Of Famer Doug Gilmour. Ed changes up some lyrics during the tag:

“I wish I was the President. Make friends with the world again. Find out what diplomacy is for. Keep our country out of needless war. Love thy neighbors and those I don’t understand. Love thy neighbors as much as I can. Run the country like a rock ‘n’ roll band. Love my country like a rock ‘n’ roll band”

After Mike destroys an Even Flow solo, Ed says they are gonna play one that he wrote because his dad is in the audience, and he thanks his dad for Mike changing their lives as a friend and bandmate before digging into Present Tense. Ed does a kooky looking dance with his hands before Rats, and in the time since, it has been turned into a popular internet meme and GIF. After State Of Love and Trust, Ed addresses the recent news about the West Memphis Three being exonerated and released from prison:

“They were in for 18 years, a lot of people didn’t hear about it for a couple of years but some of us were on it for about 15 years. It was an incredibly long 15 years but a lot of people didn’t lose faith and they had a lot of supporters, up here across the border and it actually made a difference. And 26 days ago when I was so grateful to have been able to be there and be part of the experience because it was one of the best experiences of my life, about 26 days ago they were freed. But again, all of the support from Canada and this part of Canada. It was good news and even great news, so there’s faith.”

The Fixer and Porch finish out the main set with the extended jam on the latter featuring Boom in a prominent role. At the start of the encore, Ed says they’d like to flip to the back because it reminds them of a club show, and they play Last Kiss. Ed talks about Neil Young before I Got Id and claims there is a connection between NYC and Toronto… NYC meaning Neil Young Country. As Neil surprised the audience the night prior on Rockin’ In The Free World, Ed says he wasn’t able to make it tonight, but the band tags Cinnamon Girl onto the end of I Got Id. Light Years is played for all of the people they had been thinking about who lost people in significant ways, and Jeremy is immediately transitioned to at the song’s end. Why Go finishes out the first encore.

Do The Evolution is played after the break where Ed jokes about the ‘2010 watch it go to fire’ line being just last year. Instead of saying goodbye after Alive, it is time for Mark Arm and Steve Turner from Mudhoney to join for a rendition of MC5’s Kick Out The Jams. Before they head off, Ed thanks Toronto and says we’ll remember this one.

September 11, 2011 – Air Canada Centre, Toronto, ON, CAN

Main Set: Long Road, Do The Evolution, Once, Got Some, Faithfull, Nothing As It Seems, Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Setting Forth, Not For You, Given To Fly, Just Breathe, Off He Goes, Daughter/(It's OK), Grievance, Down, Unthought Known, The Fixer, Porch

encore 1: Nothingman, Better Man/(Save It For Later), Leatherman, Black, Rearviewmirror

encore 2: Chloe Dancer, Crown Of Thorns, Alive, Rockin' In The Free World

Show Notes:

Long Road is perfectly placed as the opener on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and you can feel the energy just exploding in the room. An intense Do The Evolution makes a rare appearance in the 2nd slot, followed by…

Show Notes: 

Long Road is perfectly placed as the opener on the 10th anniversary of 9/11, and you can feel the energy just exploding in the room. An intense Do The Evolution makes a rare appearance in the 2nd slot, followed by Once kicking the show into high gear. After Got Some, Eddie addresses the crowd saying the band was surprised to learn they hadn’t played Toronto in five years. The ending lyrics of Faithfull are changed to “What’s a man to do?”. Eddie precedes an ethereal Nothing As It Seems by telling the crowd, “Not to give away the plot, but Mike McCready does some crazy shit on this next one.” Small Town is a full crowd sing along which Eddie acknowledges by telling the crowd “That’s good singing Toronto!”. Eddie talks about how they had been working with Cameron Crowe, who is in attendance, for the upcoming PJ20 release. He says it’s kind of like looking back at Side A of their career and that he can’t help wondering what the last song on side B will look like. He then acknowledges that if you go back to the first record Neil Young was on, they would be calling it NY51 and that “he’s been making records for 51 years and he still seems younger than us.” Not For You features a great solo by Stone and a Modern Girl tag. The heart of the main set features a beautiful string of slower songs such as Just Breathe, Of He Goes and Daughter with a full It’s OK tag. The main set ends with a very interesting string of songs without much banter from Ed – Grievance, Down, Unthought Known, The Fixer and ends with Porch, which features dueling solos between Mike and Stone and a call and response singalong heading back into the final chorus.

Eddie addresses the crowd before the first encore by comparing Toronto to Seattle and that both cities “have large concrete erections” and notes that “yours is bigger, but in our defense ours has kind of a nice shape.” He then notes that all of the bands’ wives and girlfriends are in attendance and thanks them all. The first encore starts with the Man Trilogy. Nothingman, with great crowd participation, starts by Ed telling the crowd “If you got a good woman, don’t fuck it up!” A rocking Better Man features some great pyrotechnics by Mike and a lengthy Save It For Later tag. Black is gorgeous with Mike wailing and Matt hammering away during the jam, and the outro is simply beautiful. A nicely jammed out Rearviewmirror ends the first encore.

The final encore begins with the combo of Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns, showcasing Stone and Jeff locking in the groove perfectly and Mike taking the solos to new heights. This would mark the first instance that Chloe Dancer was played at a show in full. The whole band absolutely crushes Alive, but that’s almost nothing compared to what comes next. The band launches into Rockin’ In The Free World and is joined right before the final verse by Mr. Neil Young himself, unannounced, for an over-the-top ending jam. Rumor has it that only Mike knew this was going down, and the band appears visibly surprised and overwhelmed when Neil takes the stage. Mike hands over his guitar to Neil, and as the band begins to jam, it’s Eddie to the rescue as he flags down one of the roadies to get Mike a guitar so he can join in. They proceed to duel back and forth for what seems like an eternity, and RITFW finally comes to an end after 11+ minutes. It’s a fantastic ending to an absolute piledriver of a show!