Episode 358: Montreal, QC, CAN – 8/20/1998

As the 90’s were nearing the end, so was Pearl Jam’s time in the limelight. But if you asked them, it was exactly what they wanted. Without the pressure bestowed upon them in the previous years, in 1998, Pearl Jam released their fifth studio album Yield. The record was a collaborative effort with Stone and Jeff digging into more songwriting and it displayed growth and maturity compared to their four previous attempts. Along with a new album came a new tour, and as we saw with every year of the 90’s, more major changes were implemented. The Ticketmaster boycott was halted in order to have an opportunity to play more venues and locations, and drummer Jack Irons left the band for mental health reasons, entering the mighty Matt Cameron into play.

This episode brings us to the second leg of the North American tour where things were started to heat up, and the shows became stuff of legends. After Cameron performed on an interim basis on the first leg, he was a full time member once August came around, and his impact on the sound and style was immeasurable. We’ll spend a lot of time in the episode talking about how great a fit Matt was, and we’ll get to hear some of his nasty fills on songs like Corduroy, Hail, Hail, Brain Of J, Better Man and more. A huge storyline in this show that we’ll talk about is the return of Hard To Imagine after it’s four year absence and how a moment like that led way to even bigger moments of bringing back rarities, such as Breath at MSG on the same tour.

We’ll talk ad nauseum about Pearl Jam in this episode, but you’ll have to indulge us first. Randy has a story to share from a recent Jason Isbell concert that most concert fans would be able to relate to.