Pearl Jam US Concert History

Temple of the Dog’s All Night Thing played over the house speakers before Pearl Jam took the stage, putting Chris Cornell in the room before a note of the set had been played. At 8:57 p.m., the band opened with Garden, and Eddie Vedder immediately framed the night for what it was: “Good evening, and welcome to the last night and final show of the Pearl Jam Dark Matter Tour.” He called Pittsburgh the “grand finale,” the “black and gold, city of champions,” and made it clear from the start that this was not going to be treated like an ordinary stop. The first stretch of the show mixes deep cuts, local references, and the sense that the band knows it has time. After Nothingman, Vedder throws in a quick Pennsylvania joke, “We’re in Pennsylvania! WHY GO HOME!” Deep arrives unusually early, and Running is dedicated directly to Franco Harris. Before Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town, Vedder tells the crowd “we get to kind of take our time tonight,” noting there is no next show in two days or three days or one week or two weeks, and that “we got the meter running all night long.” He then pivots to the Andy Warhol Museum, where he and Mike McCready had gone earlier that day. Asking the cameras to find Mike, he jokes that his pants look like he had been “rolling around in some wet paint,” then lands on the Warhol line he has been circling:

“Small towns matter, especially to creative people, because they make them “want to get the fuck out.”

That becomes the doorway into Small Town. Before Faithfull, Vedder stops to single out Matt Cameron: “Fuck yeah, one of the greatest of all times, Mr. Matt Cameron.” He then turns his attention to the people in the room who have followed the band from city to city, the ones with signs marking 101 shows, 200 shows, and decades of attendance. Looking at them, he says the dedication gives the band “a lot of humility.” He thanks the people who “see the multiple shows and keep us on our toes,” tells them “we’re going to miss you,” and then adds the line that best captures the end-of- tour atmosphere: “Even more importantly, we know you’re going to miss each other.” From there he asks the crowd, “since it’s a hard working city of Pittsburgh,” to end the run on a high note, then starts Faithfull. Before Even Flow, Vedder goes back nearly 35 years to the tape he sent from San Diego to Seattle and thanks Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard for taking “faith in a young guy, a young fellow.” That memory leads him to the previous day, when he visited Casey’s Clubhouse in Pittsburgh’s South Hills. Sean Casey, the former big leaguer who founded the program, built it as an inclusive baseball space for children and adults with disabilities, and Vedder calls it “the best way to spend a day off.” He says he was impressed by the field, the kids, the parents, and especially by a young announcer in the booth behind home plate who had “a real command of the microphone.” Casey then comes out and brings that announcer, Andy, onstage. Andy greets the arena with “Hello Pittsburgh!” and gets to introduce Even Flow himself.

The middle of the set keeps turning local and personal moments into actual scenes rather than quick shout-outs. Before Wreckage, Vedder hauls out his oversized bottle of wine and says it is “extra large because it’s the last show” and “extra large because it’s got Franco Harris.” He says he brought two for the last night, then turns the bottle into a toast: “I want to toast him, the legendary Mr. Pete Townsend. Love you, Pete!” Better Man becomes one of the most layered musical passages of the evening, folding in I’m One, Love, Reign O’er Me, and Save It for Later before Vedder turns from music into politics. He talks about how a single voice becomes doubled, then tripled, and then becomes a movement. He tells the crowd not to feel overwhelmed but empowered, makes women’s reproductive freedom the issue at hand, and lands on the line, “Strong men support strong women,” before introducing Insignificance. Wishlist brings the main set’s most historically significant musical moment. During the outro, Vedder repeats “Comes Then Goes” three times and spins it into an improv about wishing he could still climb trees like he used to. That coda makes Pittsburgh the only (to date) documented live performance of any portion of Comes Then Goes. It was not a full performance of the song, but it is the only time any piece of it has surfaced onstage, which makes the Wishlist outro one of the most important details of the night. Comes Then Goes was the only complete song the band had recorded for a full album that had never been played live (this is not counting the instrumental and avant-garde pieces like Red Dot or Aye Davanita.) It is also the lone appearance of any Gigaton song on this tour leg.

The encore break ties together several of the show’s running threads. Vedder says someone had looked at the routing and asked, “Really? You’ve been all around the world, and then you’re going to end the tour in Pittsburgh?” Looking at the room, he answers it himself: “If they could see this shit right now, they would go, fuck. Everybody. That’s real people.” He says he has “some incredible news,” then reveals that Doc Harris, Franco Harris’s son, is in the crowd. “Much love to you, Doc,” he says, before adding, “let’s hear it for Doc’s dad, Franco the Legend, number 32.” He then reaches back 25 years, remembering that Pearl Jam also ended its world tour in Pittsburgh in 2000, after Roskilde, with Sonic Youth opening those shows. He recalls meeting his wife Jill earlier on that run and says Pittsburgh was where they had their second date. He calls Jill “a force to be reckoned with,” “powerful, cool, talented, tasteful, dignified,” then turns and notes Brant and Melissa in the crowd celebrating their 30th anniversary. He closes the whole speech by saying, “this is a song that I don’t play that often so I hope I play it right,” and sits down for Future Days.

The Chris Cornell thread that had been hanging over the show all night becomes explicit as soon as the encore begins. The date itself is May 18, the seventh anniversary of Cornell’s death, and the performance does not dance around that fact. Future Days gives way to Hunger Strike, and Mike McCready comes out for the encore in a shirt that says “Vote for Soundgarden,” supporting their induction into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. During Hunger Strike, the video screens repeatedly show the back of Matt Cameron’s shirt with Cornell’s portrait on it. Vedder does not try to simply sing around Chris’s absence. Instead, he turns part of Cornell’s vocal over to the crowd, including “I’m going hungryyyyyy,” making the performance a shared memorial rather than just a rare Temple of the Dog song pulled from the vault.

Do the Evolution, Setting Sun, Crazy Mary, and Lukin keep the encore moving. Vedder intros Lukin by saying “We should just play one more quiet one before the night’s over.” Vedder stops again for the longest speech of the night before Alive. He begins by thanking the crowd “from the top to the bottom, from the front to the back, side to the side,” then talks about “a microphone and a guitar” and the relationship built over years and decades between a band and an audience, built on trust and reciprocal respect. That leads him to Bruce Springsteen. Eddie says Springsteen used his microphone to raise actual issues, naming deportations without due process, abandoning longtime allies, and universities being defunded for refusing to “bow down to their ideologies.” His complaint is that the response to Bruce “had nothing to do with the issues.” Nobody debated the issues. “All that we heard were personal attacks and threats that nobody else should even try to use their microphone or use their voice in public.” For context, Donald Trump has attacked Springsteen himself, calling Springsteen a “total loser,” a “very boring singer,” and described him as looking like a “dried up prune” who likely had “a really bad plastic surgeon.” From there Vedder lands on the heart of it:

“Part of free speech is open discussion. Part of democracy is healthy public discourse. This freedom to speak will still exist in another year or two from now when we come back to this microphone. What better place to have a positive response than the working fucking people of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?”

Before Rockin’ in the Free World, the night shifts all the way into goodbye mode. Vedder runs through the band again, starting with Matt Cameron, then calls for a picture of the crew to be put up on the screens and says, “this is our last day of school, this is our family.” He points out that nobody in the picture has been with them less than 15 years and that a lot of them have been there 35. “It takes a village,” he says. He notes that the crew is so good the band does not have to show up for soundcheck at 4 o’clock because “they know how to do it all by themselves.” He thanks the PPG crew, says the band will miss them, and then spots “Goldie”, Michael Goldstone, the Epic A&R man who was there in Pearl Jam’s early years and remained part of the extended orbit around the band. He folds Goldstone into the same family feeling as the crew, then closes the speech with the line that functions as the night’s final thesis statement:

“Until we meet again, it can be a beautiful world, and a lot of it depends on what you add to it. Thanks for adding to our world tonight.”

Rockin’ in the Free World brings Teen Jesus and the Jean Teasers back out, along with kids on stage, and the whole thing tips into celebration. Eddie and Jeff spray champagne over the front rows before the night finally closes with Yellow Ledbetter, extended with Little Wing. During Little Wing, Jeff and Stone, and later Mike, move around Matt Cameron’s drum kit and face him while they play. In hindsight, that image lands harder than anyone in the building could have known. Champagne came out to the stage at the end and the band grabbed glasses (in typical Vedder style, Eddie took a bottle for himself instead of a flute). They hugged, they waved and they toasted the final Pearl Jam show for Matt Fucking Cameron.

This was the first of two highly anticipated Pittsburgh shows to close out the 2025 run, and they would end up being the final shows of the Dark Matter tour. A rare Footsteps opener kicks off the proceedings, which has happened only twice before. The crowd is highly engaged and energized with the entire arena singing along on Given To Fly. Ed addresses the crowd after an intense Mind Your Manners, pulling out his bottle of wine and toasting the Pittsburgh crowd, saying how happy they are to be back in the “city of champions,” and talks about the Steelers, Penguins, and Pirates. He acknowledges that since the last time they played Pittsburgh, 12 years ago, there have been some additional banners hung in the arena, thanks to the Penguins. Ed also mentions that it feels like they are at the end of an era, before going into a great version of React, Respond featuring a hot Mike solo. Ed was clearly feeling the energy in the building and engages the crowd with a “Yeah, yeah” call and response a few times, and after a few times going back and forth, he says, “Oh, see, that’s good. That’s good.” Ed introduces his brand new guitar, which is a Joe Strummer Fender Telecaster. Ed talks about how much Joe Strummer meant to the band and what an honor it is to play that guitar:

“I just can’t remember how old I am, 35 I believe. Oh no no, that’s the age of the group. That’s how old the band is. Well, that must make us 50. Okay, you want to hear this fucking thing?”

Corduroy is the choice as the inaugural song for his new guitar. Mike and Matt were very much in sync, bringing the song to a fiery crescendo. Before Dark Matter, Ed introduces Matt as “one of the greatest drummers to ever sit behind a drum kit. Ladies and gentlemen, the incredible, magnificent, monstrous, just the best ever” (a quote that makes so much more sense in hindsight). After Wreckage, Ed pays tribute to Franco Harris and talks about what a sad day it was when he passed away. He mentions how revered and accepted Franco was in the city with a bit that he’s shared at past Pittsburgh shows; Franco had the African American community behind him, as well as the Italian community rooting for him, referencing Franco’s Italian Army (his father and mother were African American and Italian, respectively). But Ed said he didn’t realize that he also had the hearts of the Irish population of Pittsburgh because he was Frank O’Harris. Ed dedicates Even Flow to Franco, during which Mike starts his solo playing with his teeth. The show elevated to another level after Even Flow, and Ed would share this before kicking off that section:

“There’s a lot of people that have seen, maybe this is their 30th show or their 20th show or their 100th show…if you don’t know this one, it’s only because it’s a rare one that we don’t normally play, but it’s one that I think about often so…this is for the working class heroes”

On the 25th anniversary of the release of Binaural, Ed treats the Pittsburgh crowd to a beautiful and emotional version of Sleight of Hand. A raucous Severed Hand follows, with a scorching Mike solo, and the significance of this pairing was not lost on the crowd, as it now seemed that the full “Hand Trilogy,” which nearly materialized in Raleigh, was coming to fruition here. This was confirmed when an excellent version of Upper Hand followed. Ed then asks the crowd what they want to hear, which results in everyone yelling out songs and enjoying the chaos that brings, and he says, “See, this is why democracy, it can be messy.” He then chooses a woman, named Noa Shaindlinger, in the pit to be the one to decide the next song. “And if you don’t like what she proposes, fuck off because it’s my fault, not hers.” The choice is Grievance, which was last played at Fenway Park in 2016. Ed asks everyone if that’s alright and quips “Alright, and if we fuck this up, I’m not going to blame me, I’m actually going to blame her.” Ed, perhaps both to the band and the crowd says, “It’s alright, don’t panic. We’ve got this” and playfully tries to remember which key they need to be in (“I before E, except after G?”) before launching into a surprisingly good version given the long hiatus for the song, with the only rust being when Matt prematurely ended the song. It was the second Binaural song of the night and one that seemed overdue, given how relevant it is to current times. Daughter has the long-awaited return of the It’s OK tag for the only time on this US run and the first time since it reappeared in Australia last year. The tag was lengthy, and engagement between Ed and the crowd was high, with Mike bouncing around getting very into it as well. Jeremy is stopped to make sure someone at the back of the pit was okay. Ed restarts the song, but before he does, he laments that years later, after this song was written, there are still no better gun laws in place to keep our kids safe, but the song still plays on. Got To Give, the most elusive of the Dark Matter songs, makes a welcome appearance. While clear that they weren’t as comfortable with this one, this version sounded good, and it would’ve been interesting to see how this evolved if it had the benefit of more reps live. Porch closes out the main set, during which Ed is handed an old school Pirates helmet and a (former Pirates coach) Chuck Tanner jersey. Before Ed resumes the final vocals out of Mike’s incredible solo, he yells out to the crowd, “Let’s sing it for Franco. Let’s sing it for Roberto Clemente. Let’s sing it for Lemieux.”

Ed comes out to start the encore by thanking the little boy who brought him the Pirates helmet and says he doesn’t know when they’ll get to play again, but it has been a real joy. He then launches into a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s My City Of Ruins, which he has only done once at Sea.Hear.Now in 2021 and tagged on Daughter in Seattle in 2024. While Ed didn’t speak about Bruce, this was a significant moment of support for Bruce, who had just come under fire for speaking out at the start of his final leg of his tour in Manchester, two days prior, against the current administration. Ed tells the crowd about a big guy he met yesterday, whose mother recently passed. After speaking to him for a while, when Ed was getting ready to leave, he started bawling. Ed said:

“For some reason, it’s more powerful when it’s a big old dude just crying his eyes out. It really touched me and made me think, like that last song, the Bruce song, without our involvement at all, how powerful music is and how fortunate we’ve been to be one small part of people’s lives. So, this one’s a request, and if you want to know who requested it, if the big guy next to you is crying, it’s probably him”

The band proceeds to play an incredibly emotional Man Of The Hour. Black was stellar, with Mike absolutely destroying the solo, which may have been his best moment of the night. Ed shouts out each band member during Black and when he gets to Stone, he says, “The man who wrote this one and all the good ones” before finishing out the vocals with the We Belong Together tag. A fan throws a Pirates jersey up to Ed during Alive. Ed also pulls Danny Clinch up on stage during Alive to take a few pictures. The energy in the building during Alive and Baba nearly took the roof off the building. Indifference closes out a stellar show, which had incredible energy and emotion. When Ed is finished, he takes in the crowd and says, “We are so fortunate, what a beautiful night.”