Pearl Jam Concerts at Fenway Park

Ed comes out with “Good evening Boston! Are you ready to sing? I’m ready to sing!” and counts off Small Town. Jeff’s wearing a shirt from the Boston hardcore band SSD, and they kick into an early Even Flow. Another singalong follows with Daughter, and Ed tags two Pixies songs, a quick line from “Wave of Mutilation” and then “Monkey Gone to Heaven” (“and the devil is six, then god is seven”). He asks for the lights up and comments “…it’s a long way from center field to home plate…I see you!” Animal is next, making it three out of the first four from the seemingly-forgotten-all-tour Vs. record. Before Immortality, Ed says “there’s a few people that aren’t here that were here last time…I want you to know that we’re thinkin’ of ’em.” Mike gets another chance to shine early and there’s another awesome ending jam. Ed starts right into Corduroy after, which wasn’t on the original setlist. However, instead of breaking it down and going into the extended version, he goes right into the “everything has chains” line and keeps the song going, the original version. Dark Matter finally gets some action with the eighth song, React, Respond, and then Ed dedicates Running to Red Sox manager Alex Cora:

“…our dressing room is right past the dugout…I’ve been smoking joints in his manager’s office the whole weekend…no that’s not true, let me clarify, I was taking gummies and I left some for him, so if he calls a suicide squeeze it might be my fault…”

It’s back to Vitalogy afterwards with Not For You, and during the breakdown Ed sings the wrong lyric, laughing and joking that “it was all those gummies…in Alex Cora’s office,” and then talks about his #34 Walter Payton jersey, saying tonight it’s for David Ortiz. Following Wreckage, Ed mentions Dick, the local man who they had brought on stage in 2018, saying he had gone to see him but unfortunately he had passed, but they had left a chair for him with his picture and the message “This is our friend Dick. Please leave him right here where we remember him…” which is shown on screen. Ed gets a little emotional speaking about it, and then mentions a cameraman, Johnny Martin, who passed in 2019, and Chris Snow, GM of the Calgary Flames, who passed from ALS. A tender Untitled follows, with the lyric changes “…34 minutes or so” and “…with your memory I could never be alone.” MFC does not follow however, they go right into Present Tense. The underrated Won’t Tell is played for the eighth time, which seemed impossible earlier this year (poor Got to Give, still just once). Ed looks for the moon and finds it, talking how Fenway Park is sacred grounds, pointing again to the Super Harvest Moon, leading into the 2024 debut of Superblood Wolfmoon. After hitting Vs. and Vitalogy earlier, it’s back to Ten for three out of the last four. Black has a space visual, possibly Jupiter, and Mike sends the solo out into outer space to match. Ed does a short improv at the end:

“We were so young then…

We were so young then…

But it wasn’t pretend…

No, it wasn’t pretend.”

He talks about the shows they played in Boston in April 1994, including the Orpheum, and says “I remember we played this song that night,” leading to a rare main set appearance of Fuckin’ Up.

After the break, Ed comes out and says “we don’t want to go, we don’t know when we’ll be able to see you again,” and says he wanted to talk about politics, “but fuck all that, you know that…we can’t fall for the bullshit, let us stand united…and ladies, don’t forget what the Beastie Boys sang, ‘You gotta fight for your right’…to women’s reproductive freedom.” The band returns for a high-energy Why Go followed by the last Dark Matter song of the night, Waiting For Stevie, which has an electricity-based visual. Jeff now has a #33 Larry Bird shirt, and Ed mentions Stone’s middle name Carpenter, adding “Carpenter Newton?” (which was Stone’s alias on the early liner notes). He changes the lyric in Crazy Mary to “…saw the full moon, followed it around.” The lights are up and the celebration is on for Alive and Baba O’Riley. At the end of Yellow Ledbetter, Mike plays a little of Boston’s “More Than A Feeling,” the first time they’ve teased it since Mansfield 2003. Ed even starts to sing the lyrics, but Mike quickly changes back to Ledbetter and finishes the night off.

Ed says “Sing it to the moon!” as Footsteps opens, the first time it’s been played since Barcelona, when it also opened. He changes the line in Release to “…dear Sam…” and then adds “Fenway!” After Hail, Hail, he greets the crowd, saying:

“…what a day! What a night! What a thrill…a fucking thrill to be here with you tonight…”

He talks about their history in Massachusetts, saying their first gig there was at a tiny club behind the Green Monster, and thanks Sam Kennedy and the Fenway crew, and the crowd for being there. Jeff’s wearing a Larry Bird t-shirt, and a guy in a cow suit is pointed out by Ed, who jokes that “your udders are sagging a little bit…you might have been turned into hamburger long ago, so happy to see you.” He talks about Howard Zinn before Down, wondering what he would think of the current times. Afterwards, he tells a story:

“I had a friend…and we used to climb trees…I mean, I had friends when I was a little kid, and we climbed trees, Chicago, suburbs, that kind of thing, but no, this was not even that long ago…two grown men climbing 200-foot trees, ’cause we liked the feeling of being up there and we liked hanging out together, and it was a good place to be left alone, you know, we could have a chat, it’s not like we carried coffee or anything, we just climbed these trees, hang out in the wind, there’s a park called Lincoln Park in Seattle…the name of my friend was Chris Cornell, we’d climb these…[Ed has to take a second] and sometimes, by the time we got to the top, if the wind started going, it looked like a metronome ’cause there was a big weight on the end, and it was getting pretty thin where we were, go back and forth and back and forth…I didn’t know if I was going to say this or not but I might as well just say it…it was recently, it’s been 5 years since some stuff happened, and so I went by myself and I climbed the tree a few weeks ago…[He has to take another moment, getting emotional] it wasn’t as fun, by yourself, but it brought back a lot of memories, and to be honest I started to tear up a bit, and then, as if he were on the branch next to me, I heard ‘it’s okay.'”

Matt starts In My Tree, a powerful and intense version with some intricate bass work from Jeff, and Ed adds “we’re all missing him…we had a name for that tree, we called it the Green Monster.” After Wreckage, Ed introduces Mike, “batting left…he’s our Kevin Youkilis” and says “I like this part of the night, because it’s like releasing an animal from its cage.” He then sees the hematologist with the sign for Blood in the crowd, interjecting “…didn’t we not play that song the other night? You bring that fuckin’ sign again…okay, okay, he’s a doctor, I won’t insult him anymore…I might need your help someday.” Ed skips the second verse of Do the Evolution, going straight to the “hallelujah” part after the first verse. Afterwards, Ed wants to send a message to Ted Nugent:

“I mean, we love his guitar playing…the Motor City Madman…he is indeed a madman…I said recently that I didn’t own a firearm and that I didn’t want to own a firearm, and that’s just my personal choice. Ted, I just wanna tell you, we are…I like to shoot the bow and arrow, we are brothers of the mystical bow…and I throw ten-pound axes at big wooden targets, we have way more in common than you think…Ted, I think it’s reasonable, and not radical, to put in some simply practical, common sense gun laws into place to keep things like AK-47’s out of the hands of people who are not responsible enough…think about it, we send our kids to school at a young age and we give them active shooter drills…it’s a bit much, we’ve gone to the other side, we can pull it back and you can still have what you need, and not have what you don’t.”

Glorified G follows, and Ed introduces Jeremy as “another one about a gun.” There’s a fan up front with picture of Jeff’s face on a t-shirt, and Ed calls him “the Jeff Ament fan club…I started it…but I’ve given him none of the profits, I sell the t-shirts, the stickers…” He brings Josh up for Something Special, and dedicates it to all the parents and the “childless cat ladies.” The RVM jam is short, and as it’s building back up Ed pauses the song to make sure the crowd is safe.

After the break, Ed says “ladies and gentlemen, you know that there’s no way we’re leaving Fenway Park until they kick us out.” He checks on everyone after the RVM incident, and thanks everyone for letting them make a “bunch of racket” in center field. He talks about Tim Wakefield, who had passed in 2023, and tells a story about getting to see Wakefield’s knuckleball up close in a bullpen session. Just Breathe is dedicated to Tim and his wife Stacy, who tragically passed shortly after Tim. Just Breathe also has to be stopped to check on an audience member. At the end, Ed seemingly ends it early but then goes back and plays the ending again. Glen Hansard joins on stage for Song of Good Hope again. Afterwards, Ed points out the hematologist and says “we’re gonna play the fuckin’ song for you,” and Blood returns to a set for the first time since Fenway 2018. Ed is struggling mightily vocally, and adds a short “Atomic Dog” tag after the first verse. The band gets mixed up but they get through it, and Ed says “we didn’t practice that!” at the end. Better Man goes over 8 minutes with a full Save it for Later tag. Ed has a Red Sox helmet (with the number 34 on the back) and Jeff has a Celtics jersey on. As Rockin’ goes into the breakdown, Ed says “…we got Boston in the house!” and Glen, actor John Krasinski, and Ed’s daughter Olivia (who sang “My Father’s Daughter” with Hansard during his set), along with others (comment if you know who the other people were), join on stage. Ed starts to say good night, Mike starts Ledbetter, but stops, and then Ed motions for one more and Ledbetter is played, and Mike finishes off the night with the Star-Spangled Banner with Peter Gammons on stage.