Episode 71: Hartford, CT – 6/27/2008

This episode was originally meant to be a celebration of the 1st leg of the Gigaton US tour, but due to circumstances surrounding the current global pandemic these plans were postponed. In the middle of recording this episode, we learned the news of the postponement. We went into this excited, discussing our plans and pumped to hear new music in Toronto and finished off dejected, not knowing what the next move would be. Now since we are all attempting to quarantine and stay as far away from COVID-19 as possible, keep in mind that Pearl Jam postponing was one of the first dominoes to fall and the news coming before bigger news such as the cancellation of March Madness gave us a major shock.

Regardless of that, we do our best to put together an episode featuring a really unique setlist. If you’ve been a listener of this show since day one, you’ll remember how obsessive Matt was with hearing the song Big Wave live. Since this is our first occasion we’ve had to cover the song, Matt makes his return to the podcast for the first time in 9 months. Randy and Matt get excited that both of their white whales are back to back on this show and have somewhat of a regret for not taking the short drive to Connecticut two days after the MSG shows of 2008.

Also joining us on this show is Dave JanTausch from LiveFootsteps.org, a statistical Pearl Jam tour tracker site that focuses on advanced numbers of the band’s live catalog. Dave was at this show and will talk about some of his favorite moments, including an accident that almost ruined the show for him entirely.