Episode 299: House Of Blues, Chicago, IL – 10/5/2005

As Pearl Jam is preparing for another memorable weekend at Wrigley Field this week, we were put in a somewhat difficult spot as to what we should cover to get you guys excited for the show. The dilemma was that we had already covered all five Wrigley shows back in the summer of 2020, so what would we do? Well, there’s a little show that took place in Chicago in 2005 that doesn’t get discussed as much as it should. To raise money for Hurricane Katrina relief funds, Robert Plant and Pearl Jam combined forces to create an out of this world all-star show. Our friend Jason Brown was lucky enough to be there that night, and he’ll join us to tell the stories of how it all went down.

To get into this show that took place in an intimate venue that has a capacity of less than 2,000, you had to make a $1,000 donation in order to get in. Jason made that donation, but you’ll want to hear the wild story of how it happened. As legendary Led Zeppelin front man Robert Plant and his band The Strange Sensation opened up the night, the place was abuzz of whether the two rock ‘n’ roll titans would combine forces. Lo and behold, they did! The set they played with Plant was pretty remarkable, a combination of Given To Fly and Going To California as a wink wink to the song’s influence kicked things off, followed by a few standard 1960s songs such as Little Sister and Money (That’s What I Want). And then the band truly breaks out the Zeppelin heavy hitters – Fool In The Rain and Thank You. We’ll have a very interesting discussion on Fool In The Rain featuring facts that may surprise you.

The Gear Guru also joins us for this show and while we spend some time talking Zeppelin with him, we’ll dig into Save You, Porch and Rearviewmirror that may or may not have sounded like other Pearl Jam songs.