Pearl Jam Podcast Episodes

This show has been on our radar for quite a while and we’re happy to finally get it out to you in this episode! In the summer of 1993 prior to the release of Vs., Pearl Jam was doing some touring opening up for U2 and Neil Young getting at most around 45-60 minutes of set time. That was until they hit the middle of the prairies in Manitoba, Canada to headline Sunfest. However, nobody knows this show under that name. This show has properly been dubbed, Mudfest. A rainy evening up in Gimli caused for slippery conditions and a misty drizzle that followed the band around the whole night. But the legend of the show doesn’t end there. We got a racous, inebriated Eddie Vedder at his absolute best firing up the crowd and letting his voice growl and shred the entire night. The early performances of six Vs. songs are eye opening, especially Go, Animal and Indifference, which had the same show closing vibe that we are known to see nowadays.

Come for the mud, stay for the belittling of SetlistFm.

In this month we’re going to be touching up on some of Pearl Jam’s past festival dates, starting with the first touring festival that helped make the band at Lollapalooza in 1992. Two shows at the Shoreline Amphitheater kicked off this tour, and we’re gonna cover the second night because it’s the only one that has a bootleg attached. We’ll share a clip from our Horizon Profile episode with Amy Wynn, who was at the first night of the two-day kick-off. We’ll also get to talk about an entertaining interview that exists on the internet featuring Stone and Jeff on MTV’s 120 Minutes. They discuss how they met, how they felt about touring at the time, and a word that you can say on TV that absolutely caught the attention of Stone. That’s probably the big moment to tune in for!

Is this gonna be a good episode? You’re darned tootin! With many Cohn Brothers movie quotes aside, this is our final episode of our OTOTO states month emanating from Fargo, North Dakota in 2003. This is the first instance in 188 official episodes and 224 shows in total that we’ve covered that we get to talk about Arc. Arc is one of their more fascinating songs due to the weight that it holds being the tribute written for the Roskilde victims. The band would go on to play this nine times, the same number of victims from the tragedy, and none of the official bootlegs include any performance of this. We’ll get into the unique presentation that it had live and how impactful it was, even as a show opener, in it’s short stay that year.

Another big point of conversation from this one is a version of In My Tree being played for the first time in 69 shows. This song having not been played for that long mixed in with an illness from Ed meant it was never going to be as crisp of a version that we would’ve heard in 1996. This became a little bit of an improv where the lyrics and music weren’t exactly linear. Ed has some things on his mind and comes up with some beautiful improved lyrics for the end. We’ll talk about how this set the tone for other versions of In My Tree that year, especially the version that everyone remembers from Madison Square Garden.

All this and good discussion on 1/2 Full, I Am Mine, Better Man, Thumbing My Way, Rearviewmirror, I Am A Patriot and Crazy Mary.

This episode is about promises. Promises broken, promises kept, and promises broken yet again. The band has had a bit of a rocky relationship with Idaho’s state capital, and while this episode will focus on all of the above, it will mainly be dedicated to the positive memories. If you go back to the beginning of their relationship, it began with disappointment as Pearl Jam had to cancel a date on the 1995 Vitalogy tour. They would finally set foot there in 2000 experiencing an unforgettable show that we’ll go into in full detail here. As Ed states multiple times during this show, it was an amazing crowd and one that he promised to return to. Alas, as sequel was initially planned for the Riot Act tour in 2003, but due to circumstances that we aren’t quite sure of, they had to cancel this show as well. The band has never been back to Idaho, and that’s why it’s a part of our OTOTO States Series!

This show was given the high honor of being an “apeman” bootleg, which meant it was one of 18 shows in 2000 that the band thought very highly of. It’s easy to tell why. The energy is palpable at this show, the band played extremely tight on a consistent high-tempo pace and the crowd ate it up the whole way. We’ll talk about great renditions of Go, Grievance, Small Town, Better Man with the Romanza intro, Daughter, Rearviewmirror and Parting Ways. How high will this one be rated? You may want to tune in to find out!

Our fourth OTOTO state this month has us heading to South Dakota early on the first leg of the Yield run. It was only the sixth appearance that Matt Cameron was making for the band at the time as a replacement drummer. Of course, no lack of confidence with playing this hefty catalog. Cameron throws in all of his patented flourishes and unmatched speed to create performances that at the time was a major change with some of these songs that have become major staples of the Pearl Jam set. We’ll run through it all and focus on some of the moments that Matt made special.

Speaking of special, this show features the debut of a grouping of songs that have become a rare instance that people chase from show to show. This night in South Dakota was the first time that they ever performed the “man trilogy” songs back-to-back-to-back. We’ll dig into how special this trio has become and how the grouping elevated Nothing Man to become one of the best singalongs in their catalog.

We’ll also preview the upcoming European tour, and find a way to get off topic a bit with in reference to wedding songs.

Let’s dive into another episode in our OTOTO States Month Series! In 1996, Pearl Jam was still dealing with their Ticketmaster strike, so they found that options for venues on the east coast were limited. Big cities such as Philadelphia and Boston couldn’t provide a proper place for the band to play without the usage of Ticketmaster, so they had to get creative in finding locations to play. One spot happened to be Augusta, Maine – a state they hadn’t played before nor after. While it may seem as though this is just another bump on the road, something special happened in Maine’s capital that the fans who were there still talk about today.

Leaving his cozy vacation spot on the Mediterranean, Dennis Rodman took a flight out to the America’s north most state to witness a band and a front man that meant the world to him. Rodman and Vedder had become friendly around that time. Ed was seen joining Dennis in the locker room during the Chicago Bulls 1996 Championship win, and there’s a story passed around that they sporadically took a flight from Seattle to Vegas in order to go see Jane’s Addiction. Rodman got to celebrate with the band on stage for the first of many times throughout the years. We’ll talk about Ed’s relationship with Rodman as well as the visual of Ed taking a ride on the 6’7″ basketball player’s shoulder.

Also in this episode, we’ll talk about two moments that take place during this show that weren’t definitive of the 1996 era, but have been cornerstones of Pearl Jam’s live set in the past decade.

For the entire month of June, we are digging in to a collection of shows that may have gotten lost throughout the shuffle over the years. Why? Because it is the only time that Pearl Jam had ever played in the states we’re covering. First up is Casper, Wyoming. Not at all a hot bed for music fans. But Pearl Jam on their quest to reject Ticketmaster venues had a limited amount of options to turn to. With the original show being set up in Boise, Idaho, another OTOTO state, Wyoming ended up being the home to the kick off of an incredibly memorable 1995 tour.

We’ll have some fun with this one. On the YouTube video for this show, there is a section where a guy named James Lane is seen in a van and explains that after the show they’re going to be broadcasting a show on pirate radio. This of course is Monkeywrench Radio, something that Ed broadcasted for the entirety of the 1995 tour on the road. We’ll talk about that era and why this caused a divide within the band. We’ll also get into some of the performances including the live debut of Long Road, and great versions of Corduroy, Why Go, Not For You, Immortality and Blood.

Surprise! It’s a bonus episode to kick off a new series for June, we’re covering shows in states that Pearl Jam has only played one time, one time only. Randy gets a break for this one, as John is joined by Hallucinogenic Recipe host Brian Horwitz to discuss the band’s only show in Vermont, Burlington 11/2/91. Brian talks about going to college in Vermont in the mid-90’s and some shows he attended in this historical venue. The show itself is only 7 songs, but there’s plenty to talk about, including a Wash opener and all of the side A Ten rockers. Stick around to find out what gift Eddie brought for the crowd!

To finish our Vault series, we turn to the final Vault on our list – the Missoula 2005 show. This comes at an unfortunately opportune time a week after Jeff tested positive for Covid-19 forcing Pearl Jam to cancel the rest of their tour, but also we take the time to honor him and send our best wishes while covering a show in his home state. This was the first of a few Montana shows that doubled up as a campaign for US Senator John Tester, who in 2005 was looking to win the seat. This was the first show of the 2005 tour featuring legs in Canada and South America, so it could be seen as kind of a tune up in a way. But this was also a good indicator for some things that would happen during that tour year. There were some rarities broken out on this night that hadn’t been played since the mid-90’s. Bee Girl made an appearance for the first time since 1994 thanks to Jeff’s song writing prowess on it, and Black, Red, Yellow is played for the first time since 1996 thanks to Phil Jackson being in the crowd. This show also gets highly political with the climax happening in Daughter getting some aggression out against Fox News.