Episode 39: Zurich, CH – 6/18/1992

We’re taking the time machine all the way back to the band’s most pivotal and successful year in 1992 to focus on a show played in Zurich, Switzerland. Guest host Chris Buckley joins the show to talk about it’s importance in the band’s legacy as they perform something incredibly rare that hasn’t been done in the modern era of the band.

This show took place 10 days after the iconic Pinkpop Festival show and as the band continued to grow more popular, the fans wanted to get to know more. This is the first time in public that Eddie makes mention of the Mamasan Trilogy – the demo that was given to him by Jack Irons that acted as his audition for what would eventually become the ever famous Mookie Blaylock. I kid. So everyone who follows the band pretty much understands the story, Alive, Once and Footsteps all go together as a mini rock opera of sorts, but it was during this stretch of shows where they played the three songs consecutively for the first time. They haven’t performed the Trilogy since 1993.

Outside of talking about the rare stuff, we get to tap into a fiery and angst-filled late-20’s aged Eddie Vedder who gave us top-notch performances of some of the band’s anthems from that time. Versions of Leash, Porch and Rockin In The Free World go down as some of the best of the time period and we’ll get to make some comparisons to what we hear from the band out of these songs today.