Category: Hollywood

We kick off part two of the casino run on a Saturday night with an ever hypnotic version of Release. It would flawlessly transition into a very up tempo version of Of The Girl that got off to a hot start, but ended up losing a little steam towards the end due to Ed jumping in too early on the vocals. Regardless, the band and crowd alike are in great spirits. Mike puts on an impressive display, more shreddy than its normal bluesy vibe. A double dose of Yield songs, Given To Fly and Do The Evolution, are played here to get the energy going. Ed yells out “go Stone go!” during his patented solo in Evolution. Ed mentions a sign in the crowd that reads “shows = 140, tambourines = 0” which he tells the person holding it to fuck off. But even though he’s mean in the beginning, he’s nice in the end as long as he doesn’t forget. Ed then gives attention to a matter in the crowd, and while they wait, he proceeds to tease a fan wearing an Aaron Judge New York Yankees jersey. He discusses a little bit of the band’s history in the state of Florida going back to 1992, and tells this story about playing in a small club called The Edge in Orlando:

“I climbed up on the I-beam, and then a big head security guy who looked a lot like that guy in the Aaron Judge jersey, he didn’t know who the fuck i was because he wasn’t paying attention to the eight songs we had already played. And he was climbing on the thing wanting to kill me. Right when he was about to grab me I leapt off, the crowd grabbed me and I was floating around on my back, and I just gave him (gestures with his middle finger)”

Dark Matter and Wreckage sound polished coming off of a tour year where they were both played essentially every night. Daughter’s tag is the ‘hey hey, it’s ok’ bit from Sonic Youth’s Androgynous Mind, but right after the tag finishes up, there is a killer transition into Not For You. The chords break in before the tag is complete, flipping the tables into an extremely energetic rendition of the Vitalogy song. The Modern Girl tag is teased at the end as Ed plays a little bit of what he usually does to begin it, but no lyrics are ever sung. Ed says hello to a young girl in the audience and says it would really piss the lady with the sign off if I gave a tambourine to you and not her. Ed then references the local newspaper review of night 1’s show that read that McCready was an absolute arsonist. Then he jokes about Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, attempting to arrest Mike to send him to a prison in El Salvador. Mike then proceeds to light the building on fire with another amazing rendition of the Even Flow solo played almost entirely behind his back. Ed then takes a moment to single out Matt Cameron and calls him the guy that rubs the sticks together to ignite the fire. Sparks continue to fly as Scared Of Fear is played with fun energy at a rampant pace, and Mike sets the stage ablaze with an incredible solo for Immortality. The ending of Immortality has the entire band huddled around Cameron feeding off of each other, leaving Ed to shout out ‘fuck yeah Matt Cameron!’ at the song’s conclusion. 

Ed decides to switch up the setlist adding in Faithfull for what was originally supposed to be I Got Shit. During the song, a crew member comes out to help Ed pour wine into red solo cups. He continues to dole out more wine through the song’s bridge. Black follows up, and surprise surprise, it’s the show’s biggest highlight. The overpowering emotion that McCready displays during the solo is echoed out into the small theater, and he is feeling the energy by moving across the stage with fury. As the crowd sings the doot-doo-doot-doos, Ed adds this on top of it:

“Happiness is real when happiness is shared. And healing can be real when the sadness is shared.”

After Black, Ed says they are gonna play a song probably for the last time on this tour because they only play it when one of their children is in the audience. He then talks about being in a band for 34 years where back then they never thought they could write songs that resonate with parents. He then goes around and mentions where everyone used to work before the band got big, and when he gestures over to Josh, Josh said he was hanging up pictures of them on his wall. Ed then shares a story about his daughter Olivia’s run in with actor Zach Galifianakis:

“He was introduced to her and said ‘OH! I always wanted to know… have you ever sung to your dad, Don’t call me daughter?’”

Ed then congratulates Mike’s oldest daughter for getting accepted into one of the best colleges on the whole planet. Something Special is then played for the only time on this tour. Better Man and Porch finish out what’s “technically” the main set, even though Eddie never ends up leaving the stage. He says instead of going backstage and arguing about the set, he’d rather just talk to the audience. He toasts them, and then talks about a guy named Steve in the crowd who requested to hear Hard To Imagine tonight. Ed says we can’t play that one tonight (BOO!), but we’re gonna invite him to one of the other shows on this tour so we can do right by him (Note: There was no payoff to this story). He shouts out a few happy birthday messages for some teenagers, and wishes a happy wedding anniversary to a couple who had been to over 30 shows together. Ed then shares this story about being in a grocery store:

“For whatever reason, I had to get my fruits and vegetables and protein and get the fuck out of there and i just wasn’t in the mood to be hassled. I go into the produce section, get a couple of things and got my cart and keep moving. Sure enough, I wasn’t there that long and this guy he’s following me, and I’m like fuck, I’m just not in the mood today. I pretended like I didn’t notice him and just kept moving. But now he’s coming even stronger, and he’s got his wife with him and I’m like here it comes. And he says ‘excuse me sir, I think you have our cart.’ same fucking apples and bananas that I had, I didn’t know! He didn’t know who I was, and that’s the way I like it”

Just Breathe is played solo here, and a quick fashion note, Ed is wearing a hat with the grunge Mickey Mouse cartoon. The intro to Upper Hand is played, but we have yet another incident in the crowd that forces the band to stop and restart from the top. The band carries on and puts on a riveting performance. Ed talks about the Seminole tribe that invited them to play in this venue, and then shares an incredible story about how tribe had a very special gift for Jeff:

“There was a bass that he played on the second record of ours which was called Vs. He rented it to play it, and when we were done making the record, he wasn’t able to buy it, they had already sold it or something. It was something that stuck in his head for 32, 33 years, and our good friend out there Chris he says ‘you know, I think we have that fucking thing!’ Because they own all of it, you see. And they are caretakers and custodians, and they also grew up knowing and fighting injustice, so this was an injustice that they felt they could repair. So Jeff showed up at the show last night, and a bass guitar that was sitting in the clutches of the Hard Rock Cafe for 30 plus years was sitting in the dressing room waiting for Jeff. What an act of generosity, thank you, Chris.”

The bass that Jeff is playing is a 1961 Fender Jazz bass, black with a red pickguard. Once the band kicks into Elderly Woman, a song he had recorded using that bass, Ed gleefully shouts ‘that bass!’ The bass is rolling and Jeff is grooving the entire time. Although not mentioned, Sonic Reducer is played three days after the death of David Thomas, who wrote the song with the band Cheetah Chrome before the Dead Boys recorded it. Ed is swinging his mic at the end, and Stone and Jeff are face to face rocking out. Pearl Jam’s bread and butter finish off this set, Alive, Rockin’ In The Free World and Yellow Ledbetter. During Alive, Ed is given a Florida Panthers inspired jersey with the Vs. sheep head on the shield instead of a cat. This was created by our good friend and contributor, Mike Cribier. McCready noodles a little bit of Superunknown after the end of Alive. Ed dedicates RITFW to the opening band, Dead Pioneers, and Chris from the Seminole Tribe joins the band to sing and dance on stage. Jeff is using the 1961 Fender Jazz bass again on Ledbetter as this closes out a two night stay in one of the most unique venues they’ve ever played.

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.