Pearl Jam Podcast Episodes

2006 was a massive tour year for Pearl Jam. With their Self Titled, or Avocado, record released, they set forth to travel the world on four big legs. Two legs of North America, a European and Australian leg took from May until early December to finish up. They starting doing more media again, they started doing festivals for the first time in six years, and the setlists were unforgettable.

This episode looks into their Auburn Hills show from the May leg. Sonically, this is considered one of the band’s best tour runs. We’ll spend time talking about how the big powerful guitar sounds from the record made an impact when transitioned live. Catch us talking about the original Severed Hand intro, Marker In The Sand aging gracefully, the background of Army Reserve and the double neck guitar usage on Inside Job as we breakdown all of the Avocado songs in their prime.

Not only that, but we’ll dig deep into depths of conversation stemming from the 2006 rendition of Garden and how that song’s evolution is similar to human growth. If you ever wanted to know what kind of humans Pearl Jam songs would be if Gepetto turned them real, this is probably the episode for you… but also probably not!

Without an album to tour for, 2005 was an adventurous year for Pearl Jam taking them to places they’d never been before, and some they haven’t been to since. It was their first time venturing coast to coast to tour the entirety of Canada and the first visit and experience down to South America playing for some of their most passionate fans. This week’s episode in the Chronology takes us to Kitchener, one of the small towns in Canada that was only played on this tour.

There is something special about when Pearl Jam plays a smaller city and venue, they feel very comfortable playing for these crowds in a more intimate setting. As Ed would mention in this show, it felt like playing in a small bar. So when the crowd is invested in that kind of environment, you feel the power of every voice in that arena. Songs like Animal, Jeremy, Even Flow and Small Town make this crowd feel like there’s 50,000 in the room instead of 7,000.

We’ll also talk about a red hot start to this show, more political discourse at the time that can be relatable today, and a conversation about a cult classic movie from the era.

2004 was an important Presidential election year following all of the political storylines that took place on the prior year’s tour. Sprouting from multiple artists’ displeasure with the Iraq War and other important issues that Americans faced, the Vote For Change tour was created and ran through early October leading up to the election. It featured headlining acts such Bruce Springsteen, R.E.M., Dave Matthews Band, The Chicks and more alongside Pearl Jam. Every location played was a city in a key swing state such as Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina and Missouri. Prior to those shows, the band played two warm up shows in Boston to prepare them for the run.

This night in Boston that we’ll cover in this episode features a handful of songs that you would never see come anywhere near a Pearl Jam show nowadays. Shows in 2004 included a lot of cover songs from the political spectrum that addressed the climate of the country at that point in time, songs like American In Me by Avengers, Lion’s Share from The Germs and X’s classic The New World. This show also features two songs from the early 90’s returning to the stage for the first time in ten years – Alone and a cover of The Beatles I’ve Got A Feeling.

Our discussions in this episode will stem from what was happening in America that time and why it was important for them to do this tour, how the death of Johnny Ramone shortly before this tour effected the band and the awkward setlist structure that may have some elements that the band can implement today. We’ll also discuss our successful EB fundraiser and the Matter Of Time documentary.

2003 Was a huge year for Pearl Jam that set up the template for what their live shows were going to look like moving forward from that point. This included longer shows, multiple surprises per night and a sonic display that kept pushing the boundaries of each and every one of their talents. While shows from State College, Madison Square Garden, Mansfield and Benaroya Hall dominate the conversation from this tour year, the show that we’ll be covering for our Chronology Series is from the famed Budokan venue in Tokyo. The band is re-releasing this bootleg in tandem with Eddie’s upcoming solo tour of Japan, so it was the perfect time to get back and investigate a pretty unique show and crowd from the far east.

We’ve become so accustomed to Pearl Jam crowds from South America, Europe and the United States bringing their a-game every night, singing and bouncing along to every song in the pit that any time where this doesn’t happen at a show can seem like an outlier. The Japanese crowds intake their concerts a little differently. The respectful crowd is engaged with the show, but are much more reserved than the normal concert goer. We’ll analyze it in this episode as two major Pearl Jam singalongs, Better Man and Elderly Woman, do not have the same kind of flair as they normally do.

We’ll also get into 2003 being a heavily political year for Pearl Jam and how the satire of the Bu$hleaguer performances that mocked the former President were their way of expressing art, and we get to hear perhaps the most perfect attempt at Lukin that exists in the band’s catalog!

Following the tumultuous 2000 tour, Pearl Jam took a year off to recalibrate their energy for 2001. After clearing their heads and writing new music, they were ready to release a brand new album with a different outlook on their personal journeys and the world around them. Riot Act has two centralized themes. One of them deals with the aftermath of Roskilde directly with songs such as Love Boat Captain, I Am Mine, Thumbing My Way and Arc. The other theme is a scathing critique of the United States decision to go to war after the attacks on 9/11. They were extremely critical of President George W. Bush, as well as the corporations that profited from the war.

While the album released in November of 2002, the band didn’t spend a lot of time focusing on touring as it was 2003 that would get the massive exposure for the record. The show we’re covering is the first night at famed Seattle club, The Showbox, that would be followed up by a highly regarded show that turned into a DVD release. This show featured seven live debuts of Riot Act album songs and b-sides, and would be a great indication on how this material would end up working on the live stage during the ensuing tour. The band also hired their beloved B3 organist, Boom Gaspar, around this time, so the crowd gets their first experience of his sound for songs such as Love Boat Captain, Black and others.

We’ll also take time in this episode to chat about life after Matt Cameron and how some of these Riot Act songs that were written by him may not be played moving forward.

The Chronology Series takes us to the turn of the century as Pearl Jam hit the new millennium with a new album, Binaural. As the landscape of the music industry was changing and cater to a larger pop, hip hop and nu metal fan contingent, Pearl Jam decided to stray as far away from the mainstream as possible. Binaural didn’t sound like a typical record of theirs, but the live shows and performances continued to get stronger and the fanbase was as dedicated as the previous decade. In this episode we dig into an early show from their European run in San Sebastian, Spain. This lighthearted show took place before the incident at Roskilde that changed everything for the band later that tour.

One of the big stories from 2000 was the release of an official bootleg for every show that was played, and we’ll dig into that discussion to talk about the distribution in Javi’s home country of Chile and how he came across this boot. This show has early seeds planted for the tour where they were still trying to figure out what to do with the new songs. We get a rare non-opener version of Of The Girl in this show, and Breakerfall is used in a spot before Rearviewmirror that hinders it’s impact. But with structure changing, we’ll also get to spotlight things like Last Exit and Hail, Hail opening up the first encore, and Smile played as the penultimate song of the night.

We’ll also get into some hiccups that the band had during songs like Immortality and Alive and how miscues failed to phase them, and we’ll discuss Pearl Jam’s connection with The Doors and how it might not resonate as well as other band’s they’ve taken influence from in that era. And find out which nu metal band Randy has a huge gripe with in this fun episode!

As the 90’s were nearing the end, so was Pearl Jam’s time in the limelight. But if you asked them, it was exactly what they wanted. Without the pressure bestowed upon them in the previous years, in 1998, Pearl Jam released their fifth studio album Yield. The record was a collaborative effort with Stone and Jeff digging into more songwriting and it displayed growth and maturity compared to their four previous attempts. Along with a new album came a new tour, and as we saw with every year of the 90’s, more major changes were implemented. The Ticketmaster boycott was halted in order to have an opportunity to play more venues and locations, and drummer Jack Irons left the band for mental health reasons, entering the mighty Matt Cameron into play.

This episode brings us to the second leg of the North American tour where things were started to heat up, and the shows became stuff of legends. After Cameron performed on an interim basis on the first leg, he was a full time member once August came around, and his impact on the sound and style was immeasurable. We’ll spend a lot of time in the episode talking about how great a fit Matt was, and we’ll get to hear some of his nasty fills on songs like Corduroy, Hail, Hail, Brain Of J, Better Man and more. A huge storyline in this show that we’ll talk about is the return of Hard To Imagine after it’s four year absence and how a moment like that led way to even bigger moments of bringing back rarities, such as Breath at MSG on the same tour.

We’ll talk ad nauseum about Pearl Jam in this episode, but you’ll have to indulge us first. Randy has a story to share from a recent Jason Isbell concert that most concert fans would be able to relate to.

Pearl Jam found time after No Code to take a bit of a breather during 1997 to get out of the spotlight, recalibrate and record their next record Yield. The tours that had been utilized without the usage of Ticketmaster were put on pause for the year, but they found a way to get a couple shows in with the help of rock ‘n’ roll titans, The Rolling Stones. For four dates in November, Pearl Jam opened for the Stones in Oakland playing hour-long sets and showcasing some brand new songs from the Yield record.

This episode is a watch along episode, so if you planned just to listen, take a stroll over to our YouTube channel so you can watch us watch the entire show in full. This show was recently brought to light by band archivist, Kevin Schuss, on their social media Rearviewmirror lookback video series. He shares a story about how it was pouring rain on the third night of this run and how he ran out to a golf pro shop in order to grab some rain suits for the band to wear on stage. Even though they looked like a hip hop dance troop, the band puts on a great performance in the rain as the warm up for the Stones. There is an OTOTO opener that we’ll get into at this show, and we’ll talk about top flight versions of Hail, Hail, Corduroy, Brain Of J, Immortality and more.

We’ll also get into a discussion about the Stones and why Pearl Jam and other popular bands of the era were opening for them on that tour, and how Yield set the band up for their writing process on future records.

After three successful albums and becoming a world wide phenomenon, Pearl Jam entered 1996 ready to put out a new album and shift the dynamics of their song writing in a direction that perhaps the world wasn’t ready for. To the wayside went some of the aggression and raw power that dominated Vitalogy opting for a more self reflective approach for No Code. The live shows were still without Ticketmaster, but continued to evolve, and this became the first year where we got to see marathon performances reaching nearly three hours and over 30 songs featured on the set. The 1996 representative for our Chronology Series is a show from Buffalo, New York that had everything you’d want from this era – flawless performances and an energized crowd.

We invite our good friend, Steve Bennett, back to the podcast this week to talk about this show being his first of nearly 100 that he’s attended. And the stories here are can’t miss. From failing to get tickets through an 800 number to dealing with brokers through the newspaper as a fifteen year old, it is the classic story of how far a high school student was willing to go in order to experience this band. And for it to be life changing once stepping inside the arena makes all the difference. This show marks the first non-VIP event in the building that’s housed the Sabres for 30 years, and Pearl Jam would go on to play there three more times in following tours.

Steve’s stories will dominate the conversation, but we’ll also dig into the next step that this band took to develop a more mature sound in their music. We’ll spend some time talking about how Present Tense marked massive changes for the band’s mentality, and how even a song like Better Man was greatly improved upon since the following tour in 1995.

Moving ahead in our series to Pearl Jam’s highly regarded 1995 tour covering the first of two nights from Milwaukee’s Summerfest. This year saw many changes for the band including a new drummer with Jack Irons, no Ticketmaster venues played or corporate sponsorships promoted and a change within their sound to fit what they were evolving into. This Milwaukee show comes at a time that was pretty controversial – it was the first show in two weeks since Ed was stricken with food poisoning at their Polo Fields show in San Francisco. The incident was seen as a turning point for the band that was dealing with their own internal struggles. It was either get on the same page as a team, or come to terms with the reality of a possible break up.

This show allows us to dig into some topics about what the band’s future looked like and how they were about to overcome the challenges laid ahead for them. Three days after would be the famed Soldier Field show, so the turnaround in order to get on the same page happens quick. This show will deal with a little bit of ring rust, but after a speech where Ed addresses media spreading rumors about him and the band, the show is kicked into the gear that we love from 1995 performances. Not For You, Alive and Blood are the headlining moments, but the show stealer comes from a duo named Lightning And Thunder well known throughout the upper midwest for covering Neil Diamond songs. With the movie Song Sung Blue having recently come out featuring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson that chronicles their journey, a big part of it included this moment where they sang Forever In Blue Jeans with Ed in front of a crowd of 30,000.

We’ll also dig into Ed’s vocals at the time and how mentors of his encouraged him to limit his screaming in order to preserve longevity. We discuss whether it would’ve been wise to take advice from either Neil Young or Roger Daltrey, and perhaps share a baseball analogy along with it. As a matter of fact, there are many baseball analogies featured in this episode!

The chronology takes us to 1994 in this episode during a time where there were no act in the world bigger than Pearl Jam… outside of maybe Ace Of Base. Coming off of the release of Vs., the band continued to struggle with their rising stardom. Tickets for their shows were in such high demand, yet the band wasn’t quite ready to take on bigger venues to hold the capacity crowds that wanted to experience them. This episode focuses on a show from Miami where the capacity issues reach a boiling point and led to fences being broken down, fans rushing the stage and arrests being made. For an 8,000 seat venue, an alleged 24,000 got through to see the show. On top of that, the band was unhappy because the venue featured corporate sponsorship signs that they demanded be covered up.

It took the band an hour before they took the stage, which could have added to some of the commotion going on outside the gates, but when they started playing, you could sense a real anger and frustration in their tone. There’s a moment where they needed to have a fan kicked out for being too dangerous in the pit. That emotion is what motivated them throughout the night as songs like Blood, Deep, Porch, Not For You and State Of Love And Trust brought intensity to what was already a tumultuous evening.

We’ll also talk about the beginning of their battle against Ticketmaster service fees and how maybe our only hope in our current environment is… Kid Rock… kill me.

The timeline moves ahead to 1993 this week, a massive year for Pearl Jam as their sophomore album Vs. was released with a ton of fanfare backing it. It can be argued that there’s no year of this band’s career where they were bigger. The record was a massive success, tickets to their shows became nearly impossible to attain, but as all of this was taking shape, the band was not comfortable with their role as the top artist in the world. Their focus was on writing, continuing to raise the bar for their live shows and as we see from this show in Mesa, Arizona, raising awareness for meaningful causes like protecting indigenous land Mt. Graham from (I kid you not) alien observation towers.

This show centers a little bit around preservation of Apache land, and we’ll discuss how an incident with a crowd member is connected to that. But the moment that people are gonna remember the most from this show is that it marks the official live debut of Yellow Ledbetter. Having released it as a b-side a year prior, fans in the know began to gravitate towards it, and after some time had passed radio stations would put the song into heavy rotation. Being unlike the rest of the catalog at the time, Ledbetter stood out for it’s moody Hendrix inspired guitar wailing from McCready and anthemic chorus build ups. We’ll discuss whether or not the band had plans for this song to be incorporated into the rotation, or if it was the will of the fans that turned it into the end of show curtain call that it is today.

We’ll also do a deep dive on the era and talk about the band’s budding mentorship with Neil Young as well as massive performances of Once, Jeremy and… John Denver?