Pearl Jam Podcast Episodes

With the 2025 tour up and running, we’re heading to our next destination – the home of the Braves in Atlanta, Georgia that hasn’t seen a Pearl Jam show in nearly 13 years. This episode will cover the last time that they played in the Phillips (now State Farm) Arena back in 2000 that they will be returning to this week. We’ll talk a little bit about the history of Atlanta shows that of course will mostly include one of the greatest Pearl Jam shows of all time in 1994.

This show was given the distinction of being an Ape/Man show, which means it was one of a few handpicked shows that the band recommended that fans give a chance to when the official bootlegs were all released in stores. A lot of our conversations will be us trying to determine if they made the right decision selecting this show. There are definitely performances that stand out. For Crazy Mary, it was the first time that they ever passed a bottle of wine around during the jam. It’s also the first appearance of the Romanza intro for Better Man that got played for the majority of 2000. We’ll also dig deep on Binaural era tracks Nothing As It Seems, Breakerfall and Rival that we almost never get to talk about.

Find out if we think that this one was worthy of the Ape/Man tag. Also to note, this episode was recorded prior to the start of the tour, so if you’re looking for in depth analysis, head on over to our Patreon to check out the instant reaction episodes for both Hollywood, Florida shows!

Welcome to tour week! Pearl Jam is back on the road hitting the southern United States as a follow up to their 2024 Dark Matter run. Like we always do for every tour, we’ll be covering some of the locations that they’ll visit as our episodes all month, starting with south Florida representation featuring a Fort Lauderdale show from 1996. Their history in Florida to that point had featured some very notable shows such as a Vote For Change show in Pensacola, one of the best quality bootlegs from St. Petersburg and a show from Miami that caused a riot. This No Code era show may not have had fans storming the gates, but it was a strong showing from the band in a unique venue for them.

With the Ticketmaster boycott still in full effect, they opted to play at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, a soccer stadium meant to only seat 8,000 that crammed in 24,000 for this show. This was not a venue known for music, and we’ll discuss a little of that in the episode. We’ll talk a lot about some great performances of this era, and highlight some of the great moments featuring Jack Irons. We’ll dig into excellent renditions of In My Tree, Corduroy, Porch, Immortality and spend a little time talking about how they did it all with Jack without the use of count-ins.

It’s time to hit the road! Check out this episode to get you prepped for everything tour wise, and find out more details on how you can listen to our instant reaction episodes that we’ll release after every show!

We’re one week away from the start of Pearl Jam’s 2025 tour, and as we have come to know over recent years, anything can happen at a Pearl Jam show. This show from Amsterdam in 2022 is an excellent example of that. After suffering vocal damage from wildfire smoke in Paris, Eddie was not cleared to sing in the three shows following the incident. Shows in Vienna, Prague and the first night of Amsterdam were canceled, leaving doubt that the planned second show would take place. However, Ed was able to take the stage without being at 100% and still put on a show to remember.

You can say that this show was the beginning of a new era for them. There were stools on the stage to open as the band would play the first five songs seated. This was something that the band would bring forth into the next two tour years in order to ease themselves into a set to prevent Ed from over-exhausting his voice. This section proved to set the tone for a night full of surprises and deep cuts as Nothing As It Seems opened the show for the first time since 2000, and W.M.A. made a rare appearance in the set. With Ed needing some vocal help, he sought the rest of the band for respite as we got to hear Stone sing Mankind, Mike and Matt tag team on KISS song Black Diamond, and Josh wailing away on Purple Rain.

We invite our friend, Lori Jernberg, on for this episode and hear her stories of attending the show and dealing with the cancelation the night prior. Check out this episode to wet your appetite before the band makes their way out on tour!

1994 was a notable year for Pearl Jam as they spent March and April touring the midwest and the northeast in support of their Vs. record. During this time they were arguably considered to be the biggest band in America, which meant that tickets for their shows were in high demand, but it was mainly due to their decision to play smaller venues. As it was tougher for fans to get their hands on tickets, scalpers were starting to become an issue. This show we’re covering comes from Purdue University where the big story is centered around scalpers and a situation that led to a bomb threat being called in prior to the show’s start.

While the bomb threat was certainly a scare in the moment, all it did was motivate the band. Once it was safe to go back in and start the show, they brought their a-game to the stage. These performances define the intensity of the era as nearly every song features Ed’s screeching vocals piercing through the speakers, Stone’s hypnotic groove finding it’s sweet spot, and Mike’s superior talent on display. We’ll discuss some of the best of the era such as Go, Animal, Daughter, Black, Garden and Porch. We’ll also get a taste of Vitalogy with very early performances of Tremor Christ and Not For You.

We’re two weeks away from our first show of 2025, so we’ll kick off the episode with some of our thoughts about what’s happening in Pearl Jam world at this current time, and we’ll talk about a man who goes by the name Frank X who may or may not be a lizard king faking his death!

We’re sticking with a show from recent memory as we inch closer to the kickoff of the 2025 tour for Pearl Jam, and that’s exactly what we’ll cover tonight – a tour kickoff. It took them nine years to return back to the home of the Minnesota Wild in St. Paul, and to make it up to the north star fans it was the first of a two night stay. Javier was in attendance for this show, so he’ll share stories and recount memories from the night, including the surprise opener to get the tour year started in a big way.

The phrase “set the tone” gets tossed around a lot around here when a song can be an indication of how the night would go, but in the case of a song like Indifference, opening with it set the tone for the entire tour year. It was the indication that everything was going to be on the table, whether it was messing around with song placements, to playing songs that have been no where near the band’s radar in years. A song like Insignificance that got played at this show for the first time since 2016 is a great example of how far they were willing to push their limits. Even as the tour went on, we got to hear tunes like God’s Dice, Green Disease, Marker In The Sand, Undone, Out Of My Mind, Unemployable and Who You Are get added to the mix. So in retrospect, Indifference was a much bigger moment than the shock value of beginning the show with it instead of ending.

We’ll also spend a lot of time on this version of Love Boat Captain. This song was ranked the #1 moment of the 2023 tour on the Live On 4 Legs countdown, and it’s due to it’s heartfelt tribute to the Hawaii wildfires that ravaged the islands that summer. Check out our discussion on this version about how Ed always meets the moment when it comes to dealing with tragedy, especially one that hit so close to home for him.

This is a very special episode that we have for you this week, because for the first time in six years, Pearl Jam finally returned home to play a show in Seattle. Not only that, but it was both Randy and Javier’s first time witnessing a show in their hometown. It was a week of celebration as the city featured so many fun events in connection with the band, and what made it memorable on our part is that we had such a great group of friends to experience it with. From visiting Seattle grunge landmarks, to signing massive flags and pre-gaming at local bars, this is one of our favorite traveling experiences. Which is why we have invited our group of friends who all stayed together at a BNB in striking distance to Climate Pledge Arena on this episode to talk about how meaningful it was to all of us.

While the six person conversation will certainly take up a healthy chunk of the episode, we will dig deep into this awesome show from last year. There are special moments featured here that a year later we look back on very fondly. The last five songs in the main set – Upper Hand, Waiting For Stevie, Man Of The Hour, Satan’s Bed and Rearviewmirror displayed perhaps one of the best set runs that Pearl Jam had in all of 2024. We’ll spend a lot of time on Man Of The Hour, which was already a highly emotional moment due to the tribute to the late Bill Walton, but was also incredibly important to the hosts from this night. While the end of the main set was killer, the end of the encore has tons of talking points as well with a modified rendition of All Along The Watchtower, the first appearance of Yellow Wing (a mashup of Ledbetter and Little Wing) as well as one of the final times to date that Setting Sun has closed a show.

For all of you old school Live On 4 Legs fans, this will take you back to older episodes as the total run time on this exceeds two hours, but there’s no lack of stories and celebration for a show that certainly deserves it’s flowers!

In the nearly 7-year history of Live On 4 Legs, there are only 4 states which have had Pearl Jam shows that we have yet to cover – Arkansas, Iowa, Rhode Island, and now we can officially cross Oklahoma off of that list. The Oklahoma City show from 2022 was the penultimate show of the Gigaton tour. After a year’s long battle dealing with band members getting covid and Ed having throat problems that forced cancelations, the end of the September leg was a huge celebration and a relief for being able to get through the final leg unscathed. This OKC show emphasizes the kind of fun and comraderie that radiates from the stage whenever the band is feeling spirited.

Some of the topics we’ll dig into for this one include the debut of Garden as a show opener, whether a song like Alright will ever get a shot in a setlist again, our outpouring love for Hard To Imagine, the band no longer upset that their city stole the Sonics, getting distracted by a hot dog, Corduroy closing a main set, if Go needs to go, and best of all – a truck full of vibrators! We’ll also preview the brand new Live On 4 Legs tour documentary entitled God’s Dice, A Pearl Jam Tour Story about the canceled shows in May of 2022. It will be available to watch on our YouTube page on Friday March, 14 so please make sure you subscribe so you can find it!

Everyone knows that Seattle is Pearl Jam’s hometown city, but just like Chicago is a hometown city for Eddie Vedder, so is San Diego. Not just that, but it extends to both Mike McCready and Matt Cameron as well. So any time that the band gets to travel to San Diego, there’s no doubt that you’re in for a special show. In 2006, that’s exactly what happens. The band played with their pants on fire and every song had high octane energy as the hometown crowd was treated to something special.

The main story from this show took place at the top of the encore where Ed paid tribute to his former drama teacher, a man named Clayton E. Liggett, who Ed had a theater created in his name. He told the story about finding out the night he passed away during the Mirrorball sessions. After hearing of the news, he went back into the studio and started to strum his guitar with the opening chord of what would become Long Road. We’ll talk about how important this moment was when looking back on the history of this band, and we’ll also share our own personal stories of how teachers have impacted our lives. There are so many ways we can all connect to Ed, and this story is transcendent due to his vulnerability in sharing that.

There are also some big time performances at this show. The first four songs of this show from Oceans to Brain Of J. set the bar incredibly high for the night, and then incredible performances to follow such as Even Flow, You Are, Satan’s Bed, Inside Job, Rearviewmirror with a Life Wasted inspired improv, Crown Of Thorns, a big time Alive solo and the debut of Big Wave. We’ll spend the episode discussing which 2006 shows best define this era and if this show deserves to be in the conversation. Is this a candidate for the Live On 4 Legs hall of fame? Tune in and find out!

This our first of many episodes this year celebrating 25 years of Pearl Jam’s excellent Binaural tour from 2000. This was the first tour year that the band produced bootlegs of every show that could be easily attainable at any big box or local record store. You may have seen on some of these CD’s a little icon that features a silhouette of an ape and a human. These shows were a part of the Ape/Man collection, which were specific shows that the band selected as stand outs from this tour. Tampa is an Ape/Man show, and they were absolutely right to use the moniker for it.

This was the seventh show on a bit of a tumultuous first leg run in North America. Taking place shortly after the Roskilde tragedy, a few of the early shows had some unease and tension on stage, but for this night they were able to compartmentalize what happened to put on a phenomenal shows with boundless amounts of energy. Eight Binaural songs are played at this show, including a handful that are incredibly rare to hear today such as God’s Dice, Evacuation and Sleight Of Hand. We’ll talk about how this era sounded sonically where the band, specifically Mike, put heavy emphasis on utilizing pedalboards more than any tour year to that point. You’ll hear a lot of that come through in songs like Nothing As It Seems, the Daughter jam and Rearviewmirror.

This is a great show that should be on everyone’s list to listen to, and we hope to guide you in that direction! Also in this episode we’ll talk about the Last Exit mishap, hydraulic machines and one of the strangest things that Ed’s ever uttered at a Pearl Jam show, which will bring up a semi-obscure reference to a King Of The Hill episode.

In 2005, for the first time in their history, Pearl Jam took the trek across the entire nation of Canada visiting many cities and provinces for the first, and for some the only time. While the band had been no stranger to Montreal, this night in the city of saints was special for reasons beyond the stage. It was the one-year anniversary that a dear friend and founding father of punk rock Johnny Ramone had passed away. The entirety of this set pays tribute to the man who Eddie Vedder considered one of his best friends and heroes.

From the start of the show with Release, you are able to tell how difficult it was for Ed to get through it with many emotions bubbling to the surface. There are stretches of songs in this show ranging from songs that Johnny loved such as Corduroy and Last Kiss to songs that dealt with the themes of death and loss such as Light Years, Sad and Man Of The Hour. There are even two Ramones songs played here as we’ll get to hear I Believe In Miracles and a tag of I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend that occurred at the end of Better Man. And this may surprise many of you, but there are not one, but two Cat Stevens covers played at this show. Believe it or not, there is a connection there with Johnny Ramone, and we’ll share that as we discuss the set.

Tagging in here to help out with this episode is one half of the Hallucinogenic Recipe podcast, Patrick Boegel, who was in attendance for this show and will share his memories involving a Fresh Canadian Rastaman. We’ll also dig into Eddie’s recent performances on the SNL 50 Homecoming special and how Ed, Jack White and others did a great job paying homage to the history of the show.

This episode jumps into a tour year that we don’t often talk about on the pod – the final year of the Backspacer tour in 2012. This year featured 13 shows over in Europe and a few additional festival shows in the US, and for this one we’ll cover the show that kicked off the entire year in Manchester, UK. No, it’s probably not the Manchester show that you’d think. We’re not covering the show that features the one and only performance of Hitchhiker. But there are plenty of things about this show worthy of conversation, performance wise and storyline wise.

In Pearl Jam’s history, there’s been somewhat of a stigma that surrounds two different types of shows – tour openers and night ones. This show happens to be both. The stigma about tour openers is that they can tend to come off a little bit flat, there’s a concern over the equipment sounding the way it needs to sound and the fact that there is usually a somewhat significant time frame since the last performance. Night ones can sometimes have a very similar reputation as well, as many people consider night two as the show where they’ll bust out rarities and surprises. We’ll take a chunk of time at the beginning of the episode talking about how the band has essentially worked on erasing these stigmas within the last few tour years, with the band pulling out very solid tour opening shows as well as some night one shows that were far better than their night two counterparts.

And yes, getting into the performances too! We’ll spend time talking about how and why Stone overpowered McCready on the big time songs at this show such as Even Flow and Porch, and get into a short take on a great song from a hometown Manchester band that has relevance in the Pearl Jam canon.

The 1995 tour included many firsts for Pearl Jam with a big one being the first time that the band ventured overseas to Southeast Asia and Oceania. This episode marks the first show where they played the legendary Tokyo venue Budokan. Any massive band that has traveled for a world tour has played this venue from names along the lines of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, with the most famous instance being Cheap Trick who released a live album recording from a performance there. When Vitalogy came out, Pearl Jam was one of the hottest bands in the world. The hype in Japan was massive as the crowd there was red hot witnessing the band at their height.

We have a lot of fun performances to get to at this show, and there’s no lack of discussion about what Jack Irons presence brought to the band during this time frame. Stay tuned for great topics such as a Corduroy solo with more drive, the rare 1995 alternate intro to Even Flow, an explosive Immortality, Satan’s Bed at the best its ever been, why Go and Animal may be the best combination in the history of Pearl Jam and Ledbetter and Indifference getting the rare appearance at the same show. And we’ll share a great story about a surprise when finding the Cheap Trick Live At Budokan record while digging through crates at a shop in Chicago.

Want to hear one of the best Pearl Jam performances of the last ten years? This week’s episode features a show from Ottawa that happened on the second North American leg of the Gigaton tour. One of the big storylines coming into leg 2 was how were they going to account for some damage Ed did to his voice over in Europe. The Amsterdam show presented a different way of opening up the show featuring five songs played acoustically while seated. They brought that same structure into Canada, which led to one of the absolute best performances of Garden that you’ll ever hear.

Garden played on acoustic not only introduced the crowd to a chilling rendition that took the band out of their comfort zone, but it had historical significance as well. Going back to a story told in the PJ20 documentary, a show from 1992 took place in Winterthur, Switzerland where the stage was so small that the band could not fit their equipment on it. Therefore, they elected to play the show fully acoustic. A very short time later, they got the call to be a part of MTV Unplugged, and the rest is history, but that version of Garden from that night in Switzerland is our most prominent piece of footage from that show. Unfortunately we did not get to see a version played at the official Unplugged show, but we’ll talk about how 30 years later the band created a moment that should go down in their books as one of the best pure performances in their entire catalog.

We’ll also get to talking about a lot of songs played in dropped tuning, another factor in making sure Ed’s voice would be in top shape for an entire tour. And we’ll tell a great story about how a young woman named Ashley got brought down to the front and had her story told by Ed. We’ll share Ashley’s side of the story of how it felt to be a part of the show that created a heartwarming moment for the Ottawa crowd.

This week’s episode takes us back to the Yield tour to cover Pearl Jam’s first headlining arena gig in Minnesota. With only a few shows under their belt in the early onset of the Matt Cameron era, the band was starting to figure out their stride with the new, then temporary, drummer. The crowd was red hot for every performance and every hiccup within this set, which led to some surprised reactions from Ed, who didn’t have the show in mind as a sleeper show.

The big story coming out of this show stemmed from a callback to something that The Who did in their live shows. After years of playing My Generation ad nauseum, they turned the song into a very riffy, blues influenced jam. This is something that Ed, a lifelong Who fan, picked up on and started to utilize during Porch in a similar fashion back around the mid-2000’s. This was the first instance where they dabbled in it. We’ll talk about the history of both My Generation blues and the slow/riffy Porch intros and how it became a staple for them much later in their live career.

We’ll also dig into great performances of Brain Of J., Faithfull, Even Flow, Black and very early versions of Pilate and All Those Yesterdays which were rarely played that year. Joining us for this episode is our longtime friend Kirk Walton who we like to call Mr. Minnesota. He’ll share his story about the show which included a trip to Mervyn’s of California, and we’ll also get to chat about the misery that Minnesota sports fans endure.