Pearl Jam Georgia Concert History

After a night one with quite a few curveballs, the band takes the stage with Ed telling the crowd, “Here we go, Atlanta,” and throws another curveball out of the gate, immediately setting the tone with a rare Present Tense opener for the first time since 2013, and only the 5th time ever. Why Go is paired with an earlier than usual Do The Evolution without the music video visuals combining for a powerful one-two punch. Ed addresses the crowd after React, Respond, and acknowledges that it has been 12 years since they last played Atlanta. He says it’s too long to stay away, and thanks the city for keeping the band in their good graces and coming out to see them. He then gives Jeff a shout out:

“My good friend right here, Jeff Ament. He just raised his hands. Am I not allowed to call you my good friend? I mean, my bandmate for sure. I thought we were good (friends). What about the note at Christmas? Look, I don’t mind telling everyone that I’m in love with that man right there, Jeff Ament, well, actually, all of them. This is same sex marriage times six. LGBT, the B is for band.”

Ed then acknowledges Jeff’s good friend Coach Q (Quin Snyder) from the Atlanta Hawks, who was in attendance with his 4 kids ranging from 7-13 at their first rock concert. Ed encourages the crowd to give them their best and show them what it’s like. “Make it so they feel stoned even though they aren’t…I don’t think.” Before Dark Matter, Ed talks about having had tightness in his stomach all day and that he was trying all conventional ways to get better so he could be on top of his game for the show, until he isolated the problem, which was his realization that he was watching the news all day. He then told the crowd that, at one point, the newscast was going to a commercial and the anchor said, “Stay tuned because right after this commercial, stay tuned for more dark matter.” Ed tees up Even Flow by both honoring and challenging Mike:

“I was thinking about guitars, I’ve been thinking about the Fender Telecaster, I’ve been thinking about the Fender Stratocaster, here’s an example in the hands of Mr. Mike McCready right there. I think in a year or two that guitar, the design anyway, will be 75 years old. And I’m just glad that I’ve been around at the same time that Mike McCready had one in his hands, and I get to witness him play sometimes 4 or 5 nights a week. I mean, if this band has played…we’ve played over 1,000 shows, maybe 1,100. Let’s say it was 1,100 exactly. I’ve been to 10,998. I came to see Mike McCready. I’m a very lucky man. That is all because I know that my brother Mike responds under pressure, so I’m getting him into a corner to see what he has for you. What do you got tonight, Mr. Mike McCready?”

Mike remains undefeated, of course, rising to the occasion with a killer solo, playing most of it behind his head. Ed shouts out Mike and then pivots to Matt, saying:

“And the engine that we’re all driving, or the engine that’s driving us. As of this week, a two-time RRHOF inductee, honoree, you get to see a legend tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Matt Cameron. What a great human. I mean, really, I can speak for everybody on stage and all our crew and everybody, we lucked out with a good bunch, but we’ve especially been grateful, without you, we might not have stuck around, so thanks for keeping us together.”

This leads to an excellent mid-set Immortality, a big highlight tonight, that had the entire band migrating over to be huddled up in front of Matt’s drum kit by the end of the outro, with Ed shouting out Matt again at the end, “The mighty Matt Cameron!” On night one, Ed named just about every Atlanta venue they ever played, with one glaring omission being the Fox Theatre, home of one of their most legendary shows in the band’s history. Ed here gives the Fox Theatre its due:

“I just wanted to introduce this next one just because there’s a connection to Atlanta. I read that 30 years ago, last year, it was something we put out. I guess we had done a radio broadcast from the historic Fox Theatre here in Atlanta. And for some reason, Mike McCready was just absolutely on fucking fire that night, and I remember this next song was put out as a single or something, and we don’t normally play it, but in honor of the timing and the history, this one is called Dissident.”

Dissident is down tuned, but effective with him, ending the song pointing his finger at the crowd and practically speaking rather than singing, “Escape is never the safest path, but do it anyway, do it anyway.” Corduroy features a great solo by Mike as Ed, Jeff, and Stone once again huddle in front of Matt’s drums as it builds to a fiery conclusion, before unexpectedly dropping right into a fantastic version of All Those Yesterdays. Ed sits at the edge of the stage and sings to the crowd for the first couple of minutes of the song. Right before the bridge, Ed sings “All those yesterdays, all Atlanta Braves.” Hail, Hail makes a rare late-set appearance, and Ed is handed an Atlanta Braves hat at the end of the song and also amusingly realizes that he came away from interacting with the crowd with a bracelet he doesn’t recognize. Ed mentions that the arena is one of the most eco-friendly venues in the country, before returning to talk about the Fox Theatre in a story he says he doesn’t believe he’s told before that unexpectedly reveals the origins of the recording of Better Man.

“We’ve had so many experiences in this part of the country, in this city in particular. Some of the aficionados out there will know that we recorded maybe 4 or 5 records right here. It’s called Southern Tracks Studio. I was thinking it was starting around No Code to even Backspacer. But then I remembered there’s a song on Vitalogy. This song, we tried recording a couple of times. We tried to record it when we were together recording Vs. The reason…it has something to do with here, the way it evolved, because we could never get the sound like the energy it had when we played it live. And what we ended up doing, we checked for a really good guitar solo, and it turned out to be the one from a night I mentioned earlier from the Fox Theatre. I don’t know if you know this, we took the version of the song from the Fox Theatre; we took all the crowd out of it, so it sounded like it was in a studio. We had a great take of Mike McCready and all we needed was an introduction with a guitar and organ. And so, we just set up a couple of mics. Brendan O’Brien was with me producing, my good friend Nick (DiDia). In one take, we did the organ and the intro, I played guitar and sang and that was the version. So, when you hear it on the record, it’s the Fox Theatre coupled with a little bit of Southern Tracks right here.”

While it has certainly been known that Ed wasn’t happy with the versions recorded during the Vs. sessions, resisted the potential commerciality of it, and how he nearly gave the song to Chrissie Hynde; this was a great revelation about how they finally arrived at the version that finally made him comfortable with its inclusion on Vitalogy. All of this made for a very memorable Better Man with great crowd participation during the Save It For Later tag, which Ed acknowledged afterwards. Ed shows the crowd his shirt, which says, “End Gun Violence” and adds, “that’s all it says, that’s all it needs to say. What’s so hard about that?” He then talks about having met someone who was a kid in Parkland who suffered through that school shooting, who then had to endure another one at University of Florida. He pointed up to a jersey at the end of the arena and said, “from one pistol to another” referencing Pistol Pete Maravich (originally an Atlanta Hawk) and dedicated Porch to him.

Ed doesn’t leave the stage for an encore break and addresses the crowd and, eventually, although it seems Ed is doing his normal solo slot, it becomes clear that the whole band is onstage. Ed asks if anyone is turning 50 anytime soon and proceeds to interact with a few of them. He talks about how 50 isn’t that old and drinks a toast to those who are turning 50 and all the years until 60. He then talks about a close friend Dr. Matt Jaffe, a proud Georgian, and thanks him for being there and helping his family and the band. Ed then says:

“Lastly, I want to shout out to number 10, Mookie Blaylock. You’ll always have part of our heart. I think everybody in this room knows that the first name of the band was named Mookie Blaylock. You don’t know that if I were to have a boy, I was going to name him Mookie Blaylock. I had girls. This one’s for all of you who have good friends or that you’re a good friend to and you wish you could even be a better one”

This leads to Off He Goes being played with the whole band seated. During Black, Mike is on fire, playing most of his solo on his knees in front of his pedals. As it winds down, Ed walks over to him and joins him on his knees, as he sings the “We belong together” part, almost as if singing it to him. Ed tells the crowd, “One more quiet one” before launching into a mid-encore Rearviewmirror, which the crowd is quite surprised to get after Porch ended the main set. Ed tells the crowd:

“We said we thought we were missing one song. Josh immediately said this one, and we said, ‘Okay.’ If you’re ready, I think we’re ready. And Rick (Beato), this goes out to you”

It leads into the unmistakable first notes of Leash. The combination of RVM and Leash took the energy to another level in the encores. Opening band, Dead Pioneers, were invited onstage for Rockin’ In The Free World, during which Ed sang, “There’s a thousand points of light for our fellow man. Make sure they don’t get deported while we can.” Yellow Ledbetter closes out a high-energy night with the band really starting to hit their stride on this short run of shows.

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:
<p style=”text-align: center;”><strong><em>”Alright, we have a song about records and record machines and record players and black vinyl and colored vinyl and Third Man Records.”</em></strong></p>
<p style=”text-align: left;”>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.”</p>