Pearl Jam Podcast Episodes

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.

Ladies and gentlemen of the Pearl Jam universe, it’s here! Since the beginning of the year, we’ve been teasing this 10-episode recap of the 20th anniversary of the 2003 Riot Act tour, featuring the ultimate finale – all three shows from the Mansfield Experiment! To anyone who has never heard of this before, The Experiment was the band’s opportunity with three nights scheduled just outside Boston to play nearly every song they knew without repeating anything. This led to three monster sets with the unpredictability of a normal Pearl Jam set heightened to a new extreme. We’re gonna focus on the first night’s setlist in this episode and spend time talking about how the idea for the experiment all came to be.

The challenge of playing 97 different songs in the span of three nights might seem exciting to all of us, but for the band, it was a herculean task that came with some uncertainty. While some of the big setlist staples are tossed into this show like Go, Save You, I Am Mine, Even Flow and Porch, they had to balance all of that out with the lesser played material with songs like Get Right, Help Help, Evacuation and for the time, Smile injected into the set. All three shows have different identities, but all of the excitement from the fans who had heard the rumors gives this show an air of something special that would eventually turn into one of the most legendary runs in the history of Pearl Jam.

Thank you to everyone for writing in these past few weeks and sharing your stories. We’ll tell a few of them in this episode and spread the rest throughout the following two. Three Gear Guru segments this week will dig into a chaotic ending on Go, the 2003 alternate rendition of In My Tree and the rarely played Evacuation.

Alpine Valley has been a staple of the Pearl Jam touring route going all the way back to Lollapalooza in 1992. In the seven instances in which they’ve played there, there’s no lack of unforgettable shows and unforgettable moments. A few of the shows even have monikers that they go by such as PJ20, when they played there for their 20th anniversary, and the Ice Bowl in 2000 where they played a full show in freezing cold weather. In this episode, we’re gonna go back to 25 years ago where they played their first headlining gig in East Troy. To help us tell the story, we’ve enlisted our Patron Aaron Redmon who requested this show.

This was very early in Matt Cameron’s tenure with the band, and there are some things that we’ll hear out of Matt that show that he was still getting adjusted to being on tour with them. Songs like Do The Evolution and Brain Of J feature a harder edge than we’re accustomed to today. This show will feature technical difficulties, botched lyrics and early indications that certain songs were ready to become massive crowd friendly moments. The two big moments to look out for are Black with a highly intense We Belong Together tag and Alive with an improv within the solo.

With Alpine Valley being such a historic venue, we asked you to share your favorite moments from seeing shows there, which we’ll share during our question of the week segment. And our Gear Guru segments this week will feature Mike’s clean guitar sound on Even Flow, well deserved love for Jeff Ament and a tag of Jimi Hendrix’s Machine Gun at the end of Yellow Ledbetter.

When you think about some of the more memorable performances in the history of Pearl Jam, a lot of them have a key factor in common. They develop from spontaneous moments that happen within the song. Fan interactions especially can help turn a performance of a song played over 500 times into an unforgettable moment. One of the other spontaneous facets that happens at Bonner Springs in 2003 is how the weather impacts the show. To open this night, the band gets acquainted with the crowd by playing Release under a sky of a torrential downpour of rain. Quickly after the “oh dear dad…” lyric, there is a bolt of lightning in the background in which the crowd audibly reacts to. As Ed is singing one of his autobiographical masterpieces, he looks up to the sky and says “hi dad”. It’s a moment forever etched into this band’s legacy, and we’ll talk about it in full detail during the rundown of this show.

This show was an easy decision to cover during our continued run of 2003 show, but it was made easier due to the request sent in from our Patron, Chris Bigelow. Check out his story in the episode. After the big moment, we’ll go over how the rest of the set fared and talk about a few Riot Act songs we have yet to cover on this run – Get Right and Help Help. There is a big what-if in this set – a written encore setlist of 16 song choices with two songs that could’ve potentially made their return after almost a decade of not being played. Listen in to find out what those songs were!

We’ll read your answers for question of the week which asked about some of your favorite concert memories in the rain, and our Gear Guru segment will focus on Mike’s pedals from Immortality and how the country twang sound from Off He Goes is created.

We’re back to our 20th anniversary celebration of Pearl Jam’s Riot Act tour! Due to upcoming events in September, we have selected to cover the Dallas show from 2003 to give all of you headed there a little bit of history on what’s happened there in the past. This show is mostly known for being the first official time that Alive was used as an opener, and we’ll spend a lot of time discussing this version in contrast to the only other time they’ve opened with it in Newcastle, Australia. Speaking of firsts, there is a tag of an original song that we hear off of Daughter that hasn’t happened since this date!

On the second leg of this tour, Pearl Jam was starting to get a little creative in their setlists. We all know about the Mansfield Experiment and how the trio of shows featured nearly every song in their catalog. There’s also the tour closer in Holmdel which utilized two songs from every album in chronological order. John brings up a theory about this setlist that he thought may have been Ed’s original idea for this set, but was obviously aborted somewhere down the line. Do you agree with his theory? The other big conversation here will be about how Blood was being utilized back on this tour. We’ll discuss whether it makes any sense to play Blood in the middle of the set and how that factor may have done a little harm to this show.

The question of the week this week focuses on the Daughter moment. We’ll read your answers on what you’d think would be great songs to use as tags off of it. And our Gear Guru segments this week will focus on 1/2 Full, Green Disease and Jeremy.

When you think of 2009, immediately the first thing that comes to everyone’s minds is those four Philadelphia shows that closed down The Spectrum. But people may forget that this wasn’t the only four-night stint that they had in one building during this tour year. The 6,000+ capacity Gibson Amphitheatre located in Universal Studios in Los Angeles also played host to four Pearl Jam shows. Not four in a row like Philly, but the shows invited a bit more of an intimate experience. We’ll talk about the two sets of shows and how one dominates the conversation over the other, but we’ll also address a misconception that people seem to have due to how The Spectrum shows went down.

We thank our Patron, Jason Weiss, for selecting this show as his episode request, and we’ll share his story here. This is a Backspacer era tour, which meant that eight of the eleven songs were played. Coming off the heels of our contentious takes on Ole, we’ll go off on another contentious song this week in Johnny Guitar, which has been known to be a bit divisive as well. If you join us for the Johnny talk, then you gotta stay for the conversations on Rearviewmirror, Alive, Red Mosquito featuring Ben Harper on a flat top steel guitar, and a spontaneous Lukin which included a string quartet accompanyment.

We’ll read you Question of the Week answers where we asked about what Backspacer songs that you’d like to see come back on the 2023 tour, and the Gear Guru segments will focus on Amongst The Waves, Red Mosquito and McCready’s electric Star-Spangled Banner.

Let’s head down to South America for this episode where the crowds show up in massive numbers and bring their powerful voices along with them. We have a special one here for you as we’re joined by our 5th leg, the Gear Guru Javier Hervas, for the entire episode. As you may have heard in recent episodes, Javier is our expert musician who joins in for a few segments per show to discuss some of the things you hear in songs and how the band creates the sound you’re witnessing. He’ll break down all of those pieces for an entire set here, including why 2011 is an important year for developing the tone that is still used in current shows.

As this was a show he attended in his homeland of Chile, the Guru will pull double duty talking about both the sound experience as well as his personal perspective and memories from the show. We’ll talk about Unthought Known being an usual opener getting the nod to kick things off, a wild crowd who would not adhere to Ed’s ‘three steps back’ request and full breakdown on some of the best highlights of the night, including amazing versions of Black and Rearviewmirror.

Javier will answer your questions for him this week about gear that they’ve used on tours and what makes certain songs work, and we’ll also go into heavy discussion on the song Olé. It’s our first time covering the song since episode 13, which means a full breakdown on why this could be Pearl Jam’s worst song was a necessary discussion!

This episode, we rock Portland! May 17th is former drummer Dave Abbruzzese’s birthday, so we decided to go back to the only show where he played with the band on this date from 1992. A lot of the conversation will be directed towards Dave and how well he was clicking with the band just less than a year since joining them. His bombastic, hard pounding style is in the forefront of this show, and we’ll focus on songs like Oceans, Why Go and State Of Love And Trust that he’s a standout on. This show is also the debut of Dave’s first song he wrote for the band, Angel. Will we get to hear from Dave himself about the development of the song? You’ll just have to tune in!

We’ll discuss the meteoric rise of the band during this time period. The show happened days after the first airing of MTV Unplugged and only a few weeks away from the iconic Pinkpop show, so their popularity was just on the verge of skyrocketing. This is also a great show for Mike McCready who is showing off his talents in songs such as Alive, Black, SOLAT and Porch, and we’ll get to talk about some era-specific improvs as well.

For the question of the week, we’ll read your answers on what songs from the post-Dave A era that you’d think he would excel at playing, and our Gear Guru segments will talk about the overall raw sound of the band during this era, and touch up a little bit on channeling their influences during Porch.

For the second week in a row, we’re diving back into 2022 to discuss one of Randy’s favorite shows he’s ever been to that happened in Camden. Originally slated for Baltimore during what was going to be the 2020 run, the band making a return to the Philadelphia area meant that there were no punches going to be pulled, this was destined to be a monster set. Seeing that the city has had rich and historical significance within the 32 years of this band, there were many callbacks to other Philly shows, including the legendary JC Dobbs show in 1991. Nine of the ten songs from that show were played that night as the earliest eras of Pearl Jam dominated this set.

A lot of this episode will focus around Randy’s personal stories and why this was an important show to him. There were songs played on this night that were very high up on his wishlist. Ones that he’d seen before, but not in over a decade, and a few that he’d been chasing for just as long. We’ll highlight the memories created from hearing songs like Hard To Imagine, Untitled/MFC and Inside Job that were incredibly powerful, experience making moments. We’ll also go in depth on an explosive version of Retrograde as well as an excellent Not For You.

A big story from this show was that Ed and the band invited All-In contest winners, Richie and Dermot Berg to the stage, after a full day of experiencing the preparation of what goes in to putting together a Pearl Jam show. Back last September, we invited the Berg’s onto the podcast to tell their story. We’ll relive a clip from that, but give the full episode that’s available in our archives a listen because there’s no lack of awesome information shared there.

We’ll read your answers for question of the week where we asked whether you preferred shows in an amphitheater or arena setting, and our Gear Guru segment this week will focus on Do The Evolution playing off of the song’s original pace and Quick Escape’s overall sound from the Gigaton tour.

On the one-year anniversary of the 2022 tour’s kickoff, we’re taking a look back at the first makeup show for the postponed 2020 tour. It started in San Diego, CA, a place that has always been treated as a homecoming for Ed, who grew up there in his school-aged years. With family, friends and celebrities on hand to witness this event, the expectations and nerves were at an all-time high. But with that being said, the setlist was curated in a way that paid tribute to the ocean and local area which most of his early lyrics were written.

There’s a moment in this show that can be argued as one of the most emotional in the band’s history. Ed makes a touching tribute to his brother before playing an incredibly powerful Long Road, but the tribute developed out of a dedication. Mike Cribier had written into the forums requesting that the band play In My Tree for his brother who tragically passed away back in 2014. Mike will join us on this episode to talk about his brother’s accident and living his final days listening to the band nonstop, the shock when Ed mentioned him by name and the addition of In My Tree as a tag on Daughter. It’s a can’t miss conversation.

Also in this show, the re-emergence of Gigaton songs that were played in a small sample size at the 2021 festival shows. Javier’s Gear Guru segment this week will focus specifically on the equipment used on this tour and how the tone impacted new songs such as Retrograde and Seven O’Clock. And of course, we will go into a lengthy discussion about the reverse Mamasan and how playing it in San Diego may have been more special than any other instance where it’s been performed.

After a week of big announcements in the Pearl Jam world, we’re coming back this week with more of the Riot Act Tour! Why not?! We’ll discuss a little bit of the upcoming September tour in the beginning of the episode, but if you want our full fledged analysis, please check out our reaction episode that came out earlier in the week. Pittsburgh is yet again on the docket for us, and the show from 2003 has plenty to talk about. Highlights galore in the main set as we’ll chat about Small Town making what was a rare appearance as an opener at the time, a killer Corduroy, an amazing Immortality, a Wishlist with an extended improv and Even Flow which was on the patented McCready hot streak at the end of the April run.

No lack of discussions for encore 1 as we get the very rare appearance of the scrambled Mamasan with Once appearing in the set prior to Alive. We’ll continue conversation about the development of Alive’s presence in 2003, and we’ll go in-depth on the addition of the harmonica to Footsteps and what would later become a composition change in the song. Oh, and an 11-minute Rearviewmirror to end the encore ain’t a bad thing at all!

Also in this episode, we’ll share our Patron Michael Fleisher’s story about this show due to this being his request, we’ll read you answers for question of the week that asked what some of your favorite shows were that had an abundance of a certain album’s songs played, and our Gear Guru segment delves deeper into the Even Flow hot streak that took 2003 by storm.

Continuing on our run of Riot Act shows, this week takes us to the home of the Fighting Illini in Champaign, IL. For this show being on a college campus and therefore not allowing the sale of alcohol, the crowd did an excellent job bringing in the same kind of energy that you’d see from their in-state big city counterpart in Chicago.

There are a handful of interesting things from this one. Do The Evolution is opened with for only the 4th time to this point, The Police cover, Driven To Tears, is played for the first time in 404 shows, and the first with a full band, and Ed will break out a ukulele for The Who song Blue Red Grey that Ed admits he stole for Soon Forget. Those two covers are part of this show’s major theme which is a total of six covers played on this night. We’ll discuss this in full detail and bring to the table how many covers are enough or too much to play in a set.

You guys weighed in on that on social media and answered that exact question, so we’ll read some of the answers that we got in the episode. Randy will talk a little bit about his upcoming Seattle trip for the last week of the MoPop exhibit and Record Store Day at Easy Street, and Javier’s Gear Guru segment will focus on the juxtaposition of tones from Given To Fly and Nothingman played back to back on this night.

As is the theme for this year, we’re back to celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Riot Act tour for the next few weeks looking into some of Pearl Jam’s most notable shows from April of 2003. We’re talking about a show from West Palm Beach in this episode, which may not stand out to you on paper, but it features significant moments that define some of the themes for this entire tour year. Three themes are prominent from this era – 1) is of course the political aspect as the country had just gone to war with Iraq and Ed had put President Bush under scrutiny every night. 2) is the aftermath of Roskilde still in ways effecting this band three years later. And 3) is the return of old songs into the setlist that had been missing since the mid-90s. Thanks to our Patron Jared Schaffer for requesting this under the radar show.

To hit all three of these topics specifically, one thing we’ll discuss is a version of I Am A Patriot that was re-constructed strictly for this era and talk about the political nature involved, as well as Ed’s invigorated speech that followed. We’ll get deep into the topic of Love Boat Captain, which is featured as our brand new Evolution Series episode that will be out to Patreon very soon, to talk about how the incident at Roskilde helped them create music through the process of grieving. And on the subject of returning songs, this show’s Glorified G performance was the first in 188 shows since November of 1996. We know that Ed sang a glorified version of I hate this song, but what band member here didn’t seem to take it as seriously as the others on it’s return?

Other big highlights we’ll discuss are Ed singing into a fan’s cellphone during State Of Love And Trust, and an excellent call and response section of Daughter that led to a rare tag of Sleater-Kinney’s Dig Me Out. We’ll also answer this episode’s question of the week which asked you all on social media what your favorite moments from the 2003 tour were, and our Gear Guru segments will discuss Stone’s gear during this tour year and some of the effects that came from his guitar and Ed’s vocals on Daughter.

Most shows that go down as some of the greatest in Pearl Jam’s history are usually remembered for having an excellent crowd feeding off their energy. There are some shows that may not get discussed as often due to a crowd not living up to expectations. Bristow, VA 2010 fits into that latter category. On a cold night in an outdoor amphitheater just outside of Washington DC, the band had a challenge at hand when difficulties connecting with the crowd let to a few rough performances. As professionals, they kept pushing and pushing, and the crowd slowly but surely started to give them the reaction they desired. It was all good in the end, but this week’s episode talks about some of the struggles that this show presented.

Right off the top of the show we’ll run our interview with the host of The Better Band Podcast, Branden Palomo. After four years, his podcast that features a song-by-song run through of every Pearl Jam track will be going on hiatus. We bring him on to thank him for his work and get a little introspective on how his time with his show gave him a new outlook on this community.

Our question of the week stems from the theme of the episode. We read your answers on whether or not you’ve ever been to a Pearl Jam show where the band and crowd had a difficult time connecting. In our Gear Guru segment this week, Javier discusses the change in set-up for the Backspacer tour, including how shows from this era sound way more condensed than they did in the past.

We’re covering a Vs./Vitalogy era show this week from 1994 where both albums were nearly splitting play time live, but that’s not the story we’ll have for you here. Murfreesboro is legendary thanks to the appearance of one of the great song-writers of all-time, Steve Cropper. As part of the backing band, Booker T and The MGs, Cropper has played for a number of world renowned stars such as Otis Redding, John Lennon and even featured in the Blues Brothers band. After a 1993 tour where Pearl Jam opened for Neil Young with The MGs as his backing band, this led to an opportunity when they stopped by his home in Tennessee while touring. As a major surprise, he joined the band to perform Dock Of The Bay and Rockin’ In The Free World. The Dock Of The Bay performance became one of the most sought after covers of theirs, and was a track on the popular No Fucking Messiah bootleg. This song and Cropper are the central focus of the episode, and we’ll bring in Patrick and Brian from our sister podcast, Hallucinogenic Recipe, to discuss some of the history behind it.

Outside of the legendary moment, this was one of many scorcher shows in the 1994 tour year. With Dave A coming near the end of his run with the band, this is a hard hitting show that opened the gates for the band to get out of control on multiple occasions. You’ll hear mind blowing versions of Rearviewmirror, Go, Deep, Blood, Alive and Porch that we’ll discuss in full breakdown.

You answered the question of the week this week pertaining to the Dock Of The Bay appearance, which OTOTO type songs have been some of your favorites, and we’ll read the answers on the show. Also, Javier will join us for our Gear Guru segment this week where he’ll talk about Steve Cropper’s unique guitar and sound that he was using in this show.