Category: East Troy

After a day full of setbacks due to weather, the band takes the stage later than originally scheduled to begin their 20th anniversary weekend with an emotionally charged version of Release. The main set includes a handful of songs they’ve almost never played (and some they never played at all) with a little nod to the late 90’s records going back and forth on two No Code and Yield songs a piece. Ed addresses the crowd for the first time in between this run:

“Looks like everybody that had to make it somehow made it. Making it 20 years was probably easier than some of you making it here tonight. Welcome to PJ20! Welcome to Queens of the Stone Age 14! The Strokes 12! Liam Finn 14! Mudhoney 23! And there’s a guy who started with a group called X, welcome to John Doe 34!”

Ed proceeds to invite Liam Finn, Joseph Arthur, Glen Hansard and Mudhoney’s Dan Peters on stage to sing background vocals on Who You Are. Into The Wild song Setting Forth is performed live on a Pearl Jam stage for the first time. Julian Casablancas is welcomed to the stage to help out on Not For You. He imitates the call and response moment from Jeremy and has a cool back and forth with Ed on the last verse. Instead of a Modern Girl tag, Casablancas improvs a bit at the end, singing “I’m jamming with my favorite band.” Lost Dogs track In The Moonlight debuts live, and was accompanied by Josh Homme of Queens Of The Stone Age on guitar and backing vocals. A very electric solo and a fun vibe for the first live iteration. Continuing with the rarities, Help Help is played for the first time since the Riot Act tour. It builds some tension into the set and has a good drive for having been left off 233 shows in a row. Breath follows and has tremendous crowd participation before leading into another super rare song in Education that Liam Finn provides backing vocals on. Dhani Harrison joins for State Of Love And Trust, a version where Ed holds out the “liiiiiiisten” line for long enough where it finishes the entire measure in the chorus. The crowd is treated to a radio song for nearly the first time all night and responds well to Better Man. During the bed of Wasted Reprise, Ed speaks of the challenges that they faced when making music at an early age:

“It’s hard to imagine, mostly when you’re a kid and you want to play music and you think it’s the most powerful force in the universe. There’s a time where adults are practical, they say ‘that aint gonna happen you won’t do that, you need an in. Get yourself a construction job.’ I’m proud that the kids we were back then, we didn’t listen. Because we told them some day it could be like this. This is against the odds, even if it was these 10 people, these 5 or 6 would still be playing music. Want to thank the kid back then for sticking to his guns and passion.”

The encore begins with Rearviewmirror, but attention is quickly directed to the following four performances as Ed invites Chris Cornell to the stage. Cornell gets a huge ovation and tells the crowd they’re gonna play a song by Mother Love Bone which segues to Stardog Champion. It’s a great tribute to Andy Wood that had never been played on a Pearl Jam stage before. Another Andy tribute follows up with an emotional Say Hello 2 Heaven. Two more Temple of The Dog songs follow, first with Reach Down. The backing choir that was out for Who You Are is back out to help on Reach Down, and Mike wails away at a solo he hadn’t played in almost a decade. Then Ed comes back out onto the stage for Hunger Strike, a little slice of a moment reminiscent of Lollapalooza in 1992 where Ed and Chris get to sing back and forth together. Love Reign O’er Me is the buffer between the Temple performances and the encore closer, Porch, as Ed describes the inspiration for writing it:

“This is one written about the fragility of life and how quickly it can go away. We gotta appreciate what we got and live while we can and appreciate our friends while we can. This was just written because I hadn’t heard from somebody, it was a missed phone call that got deep real quick.”

With only time for one more song in the second encore, Mudhoney’s Steve Turner and Mark Arm are invited on stage, and the crowd is asked… is it time? Time to Kick Out The Jams mother fuckers is how they end this night, a fun performance that looks like the members of the two bands are having a blast. A great way to leave it off for the second night of the weekend to pick up on.