Episode 61: Auckland, NZ – 3/25/1995

It’s time to travel Around The World! This episode is the first installment of our year-long series where we’ll tackle Pearl Jam shows from all different countries across the globe. We kick it off in New Zealand where the band was riding high on their red hot Vitalogy South Pacific Tour.

This was the final appearance in a 20-show stretch that reached from Japan to The Philippines, down to Australia and finally New Zealand. The band had already been through a ton of difficulty on this tour as the crowds were unruly any place they touched down. They were also filming a documentary at the time that never saw the light of day, but it’s something you can now find on YouTube if you dig for it.

The biggest takeaway from this show (that doesn’t have the finest quality of bootleg) is that Pearl Jam mania is arguably at its peak and the band making an appearance in a country that other bands usually ignore speaks to how high in demand they were at the time. They rocked all of the Vitalogy songs that were released 3 months earlier including ripping versions of Spin The Black Circle and Not For You and got some love at the end of the set performing with NZ band The Split Enz featuring Neil and Tim Finn. Renditions of History Never Repeats and I Got You were major highlights from this performance.