Pearl Jam Podcast Episodes

Let’s finish off the year strong by covering the two night stay from this year’s Chicago shows! We’ll talk extensively about night 1 in this episode and discuss why this was in fact a true instant classic in the Pearl Jam catalog. It had a perfect mix of everything you want from a Pearl Jam show – electric performances, great crowd connection, incredible storytelling and of course ones for the serious collectors. Randy was at this show, which means he’ll do his own fair share of storytelling about the moments that made a profound impact on him, and a little of the journey that took him from Connecticut to Chicago. Including one horrifying story about a bathroom in a Chicago dive bar…

Being in Chicago, the show is of course a homecoming party for Ed. But this was the first instance where they played a show outside of Wrigley Field since 2009. So now you have a much more intimate crowd, how does the night go down? Well for starters, Release is going to end up being your opener, because that’s always what happens there. Then you’ll get a Bulls or Cubs reference, a few stories about his days living there as a child and maybe some shout outs to friends. Those things happened, but the night wasn’t about any of that. It was a night to pay homage to family. Having attended his Aunt Sandy’s funeral the day prior, Ed was feeling nostalgic for going back on some of the memories he had of his grandmother’s apartment growing up. The story that unfolded from revisiting the old stomping grounds was an emotional high point on a night where there were many. We also got a Rearviewmirror dedication for beloved community member Frans Von Franquemont who lost his battle with cancer earlier this year.

The Gear Guru warms up for his big full episode appearance next week by gushing over a rare type of pedal that Mike McCready used for Retrograde that was heard in the song Higher Ground, and talking about the bag of tricks Mike doled out in this edition of Even Flow.

This episode is our fifth and final in our run of celebrating 30 years of the Vs. era. We’ve decided to go backwards a little bit and veer away from the November/December shows by covering one from Vancouver when they opened up for Neil Young back in September from that year. After five years, this is our first opportunity to discuss a show that emanated from the Seattle’s neighbor to the north, so we’ll take some time to dig into the history of shows from there and find something special about each of them. For this show in 1993, it’s only 16 songs, and suffers a bit from really bad acoustics in a big football stadium that did not meet expectations of ticket sales. Although Pearl Jam and Ed seemed ripe to take a jab at the place every opportunity they got, they made the most of it and gave the crowd a preview of half the Vs. record which was still over a month away from being released. This show was also the follow up to the legendary performances of Animal and Rockin’ In The Free World at the VMA’s, so we’ll talk a little about the immediate impact of those two moments.

It’s Groundhog Day… again! For the fifth time in seven episodes (and it’ll be sixth in eight next week before getting to some 2023 shows) we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Vs. tour. The tour certainly had it’s ups and downs, and while the last two episodes could be considered some of the down moments, this second night in Vegas is the follow up to a show that’s pound for pound one of the best on this tour. The first night in Vegas featured a reunion of Green River, and the moment where Jeff and Stone joined Mark Arm and Steve Turner for the first time since 1987 seemed to re-energize the band.

As they only had two more dates before ending the tour on a triple header back home in Seattle, you’re able to tell that a little bit of the weight was lifted off their backs. It had been a year of growing pains, but on most nights they were able to put aside their struggle with fame to spend 90 minutes giving the crowd a show to remember. All of the positive energy was radiant on stage at this show with Jeff doing his signature zips and leaps across the stage and Ed’s voice having that trademark ferocity for the era. We’ll dig deep into songs like Go, Glorified G, Daughter, Garden, Blood, Porch and others that were the highlights from this night.

We’ll also react to the news announced by Matt Cameron that the new album is mixed and ready, and the Gear Guru segments this week will dig into an intro for Daughter that had a very 80s, Tears For Fears or Police sound to it, and will get into Mike’s experimental, Sonic Youth inspired sound on the Porch solo.

Let’s stick in 1993 for this episode and head over to Nacogdoches, Texas, a show that takes place only days after Ed’s arrest in New Orleans that we talked about last week. This show yet again presents all of the trials and tribulations of being on tour in 1993. After playing nearly non-stop, and spending their off days working on and recording brand new music, the rigorous travel had finally gotten to the health of Dave Abbruzzese where he is needed to rush to the emergency room after the main set. This left for the band to improvise an encore without drums.

We invite one of the most knowledgeable Pearl Jam minds onto the show that wrote THE book chronicling the history and timeline of Pearl Jam in PJ20, Jonathan Cohen. Jonathan joins us to give a little bit of context to the era and why the band had a difficult time dealing with their skyrocketing popularity, and what they did to seek the advice of rock ‘n’ roll’s elder statesmen to help guide them through. We’ll also talk a little bit about Pearl Jam’s 2024 plans and what you can expect from a new album year!

We’ll spend some time on some interesting setlist decisions from this show, including the choice to open with the Daughter/Glorified G combination, Sonic Reducer in the middle of the main set and of course the decisions made without Dave on hand. The Gear Guru segments will break down both Yellow Ledbetter and Footsteps that were performed without drums at this show.

As we continue our ode to the 30 years of the Vs. tour this November, we’re stopping at a show that’s known for both what happened during the concert, and then what happened in the aftermath. The show is an unforgettable night from this tour highlighted by a very early rendition of Crazy Mary in which original songwriter, Victoria Williams, joins them to play guitar and sing, and long-time Pearl Jam producer, Brendan O’Brien, is called upon to play the B3. It’s a moment that’s etched in history, but perhaps gets overshadowed by the events that took place the following night. After a dispute with a fan in a New Orleans bar, Eddie Vedder was arrested for public drunkenness and disturbing the peace after spitting in the man’s face. We’ll take the early portion of the episode to discuss about the incident as we’ll invite the 1993 American League Cy Young award winner, Jack McDowell, onto the show, who was there during the occurrence.

We’ll talk to Jack about his relationship with Eddie and how they met through their ex-wives, how Pearl Jam got his band V.I.E.W. bumped off a gig at CBGB’s, how he and Ed convinced TV reporters that Ed was a White Sox call-up, and of course the New Orleans situation. Get to hear what he thought of the whole ordeal and how his night ended up after getting into it with the friend of the agitator that Ed had to deal with. There was only so much time that we had to share of his interview in this episode, but check out Patreon this week for the director’s cut of the interview featuring stories about his band’s V.I.E.W. and stickfigure, Pearl Jam’s relationship with baseball and his current frustrations with baseball analytics that he likes to write songs about.

As for the show, there are excellent performances that we’ll get to dig into from Why Go, Footsteps, Porch, Rats, Blood and of course, Crazy Mary. We’ll also discuss Release being an OTOTO Daughter tag and a wild sequence that featured Ed singing lyrics from Michael Jackson song “Ben” into a fierce, unrelenting rendition of Blood. Our Gear Guru segments this week will focus on some of the slide guitar features of Rats, and of course, the contrast of this version of Crazy Mary compared to what we know of it now.

1993 could be considered as one of the most important years in the history of Pearl Jam. Vs. sold over a million copies in a week, their popularity was skyrocketing to unprecedented heights where mainstream news sources like TIME Magazine wanted in on the hype. Believe it or not, we haven’t dabbled in many 1993 shows on this podcast. That’s why this entire month is dedicated to the tour year where we’ll talk about some great shows that may get overlooked next to the all-timers such as Indio, Mudfest and others. This episode will take us to Ed’s hometown in San Diego for the second of a two night stint that displayed the power and authenticity of the band in their sophomore year.

A lot of the conversation here will be about Dave A and how comfortable he felt behind the kit during this time period. His heavy, bombastic style brought even more power and ferocity to the songs that had already claimed that identity. But he also made a song such as Release feel like a triumphant, exhilarating live experience that elevated every band member to match his intensity. The big story of this show comes within one of the most polished improv performances they’d ever attempt with a song that is known as Hold Me. We’ll get into a deep discussion on how locked in the band was at this time that they were able to make these improvs feel like well rehearsed songs that could’ve been confused as b-sides. Porch and Once are also major highlights of this show to tune in for.

Our Gear Guru segments this week feature Javier getting into whether Stone is using a Fuzz Pedal on Jeremy, how electric guitar works for a song like Small Town and what made the improv come all together to feel complete. Javier has a brand new single out called La Distancia under the artist name Panamericana. You can find the song on Apple Music and Spotify streaming platforms. Please go check it out!

One of the many reasons of how Pearl Jam has developed such a large following within their fanbase traveling near and far to their shows is that every single show is going to offer you something completely different than their last. Nearly everyone has a wish list of songs that they think they’ll never hear live, but keep hope alive that some day they will finally be in the building on the night they play one. Those rarities are cherished by this community, and if you happen to be at the right show at the right time, you may see multiple rare tracks that they may not play on the rest of the tour. Charlottesville 2013 was that kind of show. With 3 dates left before the end of the east coast run that year, the band unloaded on songs from all different eras that automatically made this one of the most talked about shows of the year.

The sets in 2013 were starting to grow longer without the appearance of an opener. Most shows pushed the 3-hour mark and delved into well beyond 30 songs played for each individual night. Charlottesville had a total of 35 songs that were played, and among the big talking points were songs like In My Tree, Grievance, Glorified G, Big Wave, Sad and the first appearance of Thumbing My Way since 2006. Those six performances alone created enough talking points for this to be recognized perhaps under the “instant classic” moniker. But there are many discussions to be had in this episode that could spell some of those pre-conceived notions. With 19 songs bunched in to a main set that lasted an hour and 25 minutes, there will be a lot of discussion here on how some of the flow and pacing felt a little bit off when attempting this enormous task. We’ll discuss how that compares to the more recent era where there are less songs played, but more time to give each one it’s moment to shine in a more methodical way.

We’ll hear from you guys on what type of Pearl Jam shows that you prefer to see, and we’ll get three excellent segments from the Gear Guru this week – Stone’s fingerpicking on Release, Mike using a monstrous Gretsch guitar on Glorified G, and he’ll dig into why this version of Whipping desperately needed to be aborted towards the end.

This episode has been a long time coming. On its 10th anniversary, we are covering an absolute classic Pearl Jam show from Hartford, Connecticut in 2013. Randy has talked a lot about this show in the past, and this episode will be a platform for him to share his memories of his experience, and perhaps get up on a soapbox a little bit. This show is living proof that this small city in Connecticut is one of the best Pearl Jam crowds you can find. We’ll talk about that extensively throughout the episode, but what you’ll witness is every time the crowd cheers, Ed is completely beside himself. One massive standing ovation after Last Exit perfectly set the tone for what this night would end up being.

While the crowd certainly is the #1 theme, it does share the #1 spot with the other important theme from this show. Less than a year after the fatal tragedy happened at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, CT, this was Ed’s first moment to be able to react publicly to what had took place. After meeting with fathers of kids who were killed earlier that day, he gave an impassioned speech standing up for gun control and pleading the crowd to continue being loud about it. Songs like Long Road and Come Back reflect the mood of this theme.

Another theme that derives from Hartford shows is over one song that has connected the band to the city since 2010. What was once an OTOTO (one time, one time only) performance was now being brought back for a second time – the Van Halen rocker Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love. This song will set up a bit of a contentious discussion in this episode about the idea of them playing it. On one side you’ll hear praise for the band giving this city some special love for making it a theme, on the other side you’ll notice pushback for covering a band they have no business covering. And if you enjoy that conversation, you’ll probably love the segue into Got Some as well.

Gear Guru segments this week will focus on Lighting Bolt era songs Let The Records Play and Yellow Moon, as well as a little Jeff Ament talk focusing on his fretless bass from Alone.

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Pearl Jam’s sophomore record, Vs., in this episode we’re going back to where it all started. In the spring of 1993, the band set out to record the new record in the Northern California town of San Rafael. The process took two months to lay down all the tracks. At the end of the session, a surprise show was planned under the moniker of the David J. Gunn Band at a small San Francisco area venue called Slim’s. It was on this night that the 500+ in attendance, both indoors and out, witnessed the dawning of the Vs. era.

Nearly everything off of the album debuted, plus other songs that would end up being Lost Dogs or on Vitalogy. Animal, Go, Blood, Dissident, W.M.A., Rats, Rearviewmirror appeared for the first time in their infant stages, alongside Whipping and a little Bad Radio song titled Better Man. Hard To Imagine also claimed it’s live debuted after being noodled and an improv all throughout the 1992 tour. An abridged version of Dirty Frank was played upon request, as was Alone that was also considered a deep cut by this point. While the beloved songs from Ten were played, they felt like an afterthought with all of the new material showcased.

This is considered to be the first true surprise show in the history of the band, and with that came stories of how this show was almost canceled on multiple occasions and may not have happened if Cyndi Lauper was still set to perform that night. To give us the historical context of this show, we’ve invited on a Pearl Jam community legend, Kathy Davis, who watched this show from an open window. If you don’t know Kathy, you should. She was a band archivist going all the way back to this era in 1993 putting together her zine called Footsteps. She’d later help take over with Two Feet Thick after Five Horizons parted ways. Her retelling of the night and how it all came about is more than enough reason to listen to this episode!

After a long year and a half battle of the world in a lockdown due to Covid-19, concerts were starting to slowly trickle back in by the end of 2021. Pearl Jam had missed their big opportunity to showcase Gigaton on a promotional tour in 2020, so when the opportunity to play four festival shows arose, with careful consideration they finally decided to kick off the new era. Three of the four shows took place at Eddie Vedder’s curated Ohana Festival, which was originally set for one date until a second weekend was added with Pearl Jam headlining both nights. The show we’re covering here is the final night of this run, which means it was a massive celebration with the band, the fans and all of the artists and friends that attended.

Celebration is the theme for this night as every song felt like it had an injection of fun and enthusiasm. There wasn’t a single low energy song featured on the set, and knowing it was the last night, they brought their a-game to create some memorable moments, especially Michael F. McCready (I’ll leave it to you to figure out what the “F” stands for). Songs like Even Flow and Black had explosive elements to them, even more so than usual, while some highlights came as a complete surprise. For those who know the personalities on this podcast, you may be aware that there is one song on the rarer side that has followed Randy around throughout the years – All Night. For those dying to hear an answer on this, you’ll be fulfilled and shocked by the conversation brought to the table. But the big highlight of the night came from Rockin’ In The Free World where the wildest cast of characters (Taylor Hawkins, Brandi Carlile, Sleater-Kinney, Kelly Slater, John McEnroe, Patti Smith, Tim Robbins, Randy Johnson among others) throw a big time party where not one person stays six feet away from another.

This week we invite our friend and Patron, Dakota Duvall, to the show to get his request fulfilled and tell his story about why he chose this show to get covered. And our Gear Guru segments for this week will focus on Quick Escape, Seven O’Clock and Life Wasted.

In 2005, Pearl Jam dedicated the month of September to tour across an area they’ve never touched from coast to coast – the great plains and prairies of Canada. 17 shows over 24 days led to some absolute classics from this band that may get forgotten over time, but that’s part of why we’re here is to keep the discussion alive! This show in Winnipeg that we’re covering in this episode is a great example of a Canadian small town that never hosted Pearl Jam before this tour attempt, and the crowd ended up delivering big time.

At the newly built arena that would later become the home of the reformed Winnipeg Jets, Pearl Jam happened to draw the largest capacity audience for the one year since it had been built. From the bootleg, you can tell that there isn’t a single seat empty in the building. That led the band to pull out some surprises that you almost never get to see at normal shows, such as Better Man opening the night, Blood closing encore 1 after Alive, and Indifference opening the second encore. With plenty of Neil Young references and a wonderful moment where a fan got her request for Smile granted, nearly every song has their moment in the sun at this show. Lest we forget, a little flip phone call during Daughter that leads to a fun moment.

Not only will we dig into the strength of the crowd here, but we’ll have the Gear Guru step in and do a little breakdown on Stone during Not For You and Do The Evolution, and he’ll also breakdown why Mike’s modem was running at the end of Blood.

With the 2023 tour in our rearviewmirror, we’re pushing forward back as this episode features a great show from Prague at the end of the Lightning Bolt tour run. Seeing as we are now officially finished with the Gigaton run, we thought it would be a good idea to take both of these tour years and see how they compared before embarking on a new era. It’s interesting to look at side by side because at the show in Prague, the crowd was treated to many crowd favorite rarities such as Tremor Christ, Brain Of J., Love Boat Captain and Help Help. That’s not far off from what we were just treated to! Of course the sets were a little longer in 2018, but we’re going to get into why certain things have needed to be adjusted as the band gets older.

While people may remember 2018 for the Home/Away shows, the massive show in Rome or even the London make-up show, this Prague show should be right up there when people discuss the best of this year. The crowd was lively on big time favorites such as Corduroy and Do The Evolution, which means they were treated to some well deserved surprises later in the set. Two big highlights of this show include a version of Love Boat Captain that features an incredible jam/improv intro, and a tandem of The Beatles Help! transitioning into Riot Act deep cut Help Help. We’ll also have a little Prague history for you that we’ll discuss!

Thanks go out to Ross Strothers for requesting this episode, you’ll get to hear his story told. And the Gear Guru segments this week feature a discussion on Stone’s tone during Tremor Christ and other songs, and Mike using a very unique pedal that created a sound in songs like Even Flow and Black that we didn’t get to see presented in 2023.