Episode 240: Mansfield, MA – 7/3/2003

Continuing onward with our big summer series, this episode focuses on the second night of Pearl Jam’s Mansfield Experiment. With the first night under their belt and the crowd coming into the show aware of the premise, the excitement was at an all-time high. While night 1 was a great introduction to the idea, this show’s crowd is up for all of the surprises and answers when called upon for the big call and response moments. While there may be no acoustic set like night 3, the energy at this show was palpable, even though Ed came off a bit grumpy due to a lack of sleep the night prior.

Although there were a few rarities spliced in to the night before, this show featured a few songs that you almost never heard at Pearl Jam shows during that era. The most eye opening one was Low Light. Of course Low Light has become a common staple of Pearl Jam sets in recent history, but coming into this show it had only been played one other time at the 2001 Bridge School show. We’ll spend time breaking down how this turned into a classic song over time, and some of the pieces that aren’t found in recent versions. Other big performances that we’ll dive into are Release, Animal, Insignificance, Love Boat Captain, Rival, Rearviewmirror and amazing crowd responses on both Alive and Baba O’Riley.

Once again, thank you to everyone who sent in their stories. We’ll read another batch of them in the episode. And our Gear Guru segments will focus on the emergence of Low Light, the 2003 rendition of I Am A Patriot and a Jeff Ament driven Rearviewmirror.