Episode 287: Salt Lake City, UT – 11/1/1995

As the west coast leg of the Dark Matter tour has come to a close, now is a great opportunity for us to dig into a few great Pearl Jam shows without covering upcoming tour locations. That takes us to November of 1995. A five-show run featuring shows that were postponed from earlier in the tour year that have gone down in history as some of the best of the era. After being forced to postpone a June Salt Lake City show due to weather conditions, the promise Ed had made was that the band would come back and play twice as long. Which means they came back and played two shows instead of one for their make up. This run will always be most known as hosting the live debuts for both Red Mosquito and Brain Of J, the former of which we’ll talk about in this episode.

Ed would make a quip on night two that it was like the crowd’s parents came to night one. While this show may not reach the excitement of night two, that quote has given this show an undeserved stigma that we’re out to prove is inaccurate. Some great performances go down on this night including ones from Corduroy, Deep, RVM, Immortality and what amounts to probably the longest version of Blood in the catalog. We’ll also dig into an improv titled Seven Years Waiting and a Porch closer that got a little bit weird in the solo.

We’re also only a week out from the Seattle shows, so we’ll chat about the experience and some of the best performances that held up from that night.