Pearl Jam Podcast Episodes

We’re back to Europe as our Around The World series continues with a stop in Copenhagen, Denmark from 2012. It was the end of a 13-show summer European tour in a year where the band wouldn’t tour much outside of those dates and a few late summer US festivals. It would also mark the end of the Backspacer era leading way to new music a year later from Lightning Bolt. It is pretty much a guarantee on the last night of a tour that the band is gonna be in a good mood and leave everything they have on the stage. The Monday crowd brought their A-game too as they showed their chops on versions of Elderly Woman, Do The Evolution, Love Boat Captain, Even Flow and Better Man. The band looked to sprint through the first set (that ended at approx 67 minutes) to get the crowd to sweat inside a very hot building.

This episode will take us to the 1998 Yield Tour. It was a time where the band started to familiarize themselves with their brand new drummer Matt Cameron, so setlists weren’t as diverse as we’d see in later years, especially for the album that Yield followed up in No Code that only had one song represented on this night. 1998 was really the first year since 1994 that tickets were becoming more accessible to fans due to the band’s refusal to play Ticketmaster venues. As mentioned in this show, 98 was really one of the first years that fans began to travel along with the band from location to location. Our Patron Patrick Boegel joins us as a guest on this episode and talks about the stretch of shows he traveled for during this late August time period. This is a great show where the classics were on full display. Incredible and possibly overlooked versions of Alive, Black, Daughter, Wishlist and Immortality were the big moments where the band were truly at the top of their game.

Happy 75th “official” episode to us as we continue to embark on our Around The World journey in the Scandinavian territory covering the Oslo, Norway show from 2014. While this show has many ups as well as a few downs, its widely known for being the first ever show that the super rare Lost Dog track, Strangest Tribe, made an appearance at a show. With the Lost Dogs album being out for 10 years prior to this show, there were only a few songs that the band has held out on playing from the double disc. While songs like Undone, Hold On and on one occasion Hitchhiker have been brought to the table, Strangest Tribe was seen as one that would never be touched even though it was incredibly popular with the fanbase. We’ll talk about how big of a shock it was to hear that it was played, and having seen the other version of it, Randy will compare it to the Fenway performance. That wasn’t the only rarely heard song you got from this show. The band powered through a stretch of uncommon songs in the middle of the main set such as My Father’s Son, In Hiding, Sad, Light Years and Garden and then would power through the encore with songs like Satan’s Bed, Leash and a rare rendition of Rolling Stones cover Waiting On A Friend.

In this episode, we look back to the Fairfax 1994 show that Pearl Jam took the stage for just hours after hearing the news of Kurt Cobain’s death. On what was an emotional night, especially for Eddie, the band makes the best of a bad situation and puts together a passionate, spirited performance among the grieving fans. We’ll discuss in this episode the band’s reaction to his death and how it would impact their decisions moving forward as they would be looked upon to fill the void that Kurt left behind. The generation that mourned his death naturally drifted towards Eddie for answers, ones that he wasn’t necessarily ready to provide. We’ll also get a visit from a fellow Pearl Jam podcaster. Roche from Jamily Matters will join us to talk a little bit about being at this Fairfax show which was the first one he attended. He’ll capture the atmosphere and uncertainty in the building from the crowd during this incredibly challenging day. Also a big thank you goes out to Jed Garfunkel who requested this episode, we’ll be telling his story on the show as well.

This episode we dig back into Ten era Pearl Jam where the band was touring Europe right at the height of their popularity. Our Around The World series continues covering a Stockholm, Sweden show from 1992. This show is important for a lot of reasons. After this show, an incident where the band was robbed backstage combined with the next day at Roskilde where Ed got into a fight with a security guard led for them to cancel 7 remaining dates on this Euro tour. A few of those festival dates they were set to take the stage alongside Nirvana. As for the Stockholm show, they were in a good mood that day and debuted two cover songs in the pre-set – Driven To Tears and Throw Your Arms Around Me. The set is full of Ten songs, a Fugazi Easter egg hunt, and a unique closing sequence of Release and Footsteps.

What’s a better way to enjoy your time social distancing than reliving some of Pearl Jam’s best shows in their history? This one we don’t have to go back too far as we’ll only travel back to 2018 to cover the Krakow, Poland show – another episode in our Around The World series. This show provides another chance to talk about a smaller city/country that Pearl Jam brings their a-game to. From opening with Of The Girl to busting out uncommon favorites from the Riot Act era, the band was having fun while taking their chances on this very memorable night. But there is no argument that the most important thing that came out of this night was a rare appearance of the Lost Dog track Other Side. Only having appeared two other times at the 2010 Bridge School and Worcester in 2013, this song came as a complete surprise in this set list. Especially in the very early part of the set. This will obviously be one of the only times we get to talk about the song so we do our best to figure out why the band might not bust it out as much as the fans may want them to.

This episode was originally meant to be a celebration of the 1st leg of the Gigaton US tour, but due to circumstances surrounding the current global pandemic these plans were postponed. In the middle of recording this episode, we learned the news of the postponement. We went into this excited, discussing our plans and pumped to hear new music in Toronto and finished off dejected, not knowing what the next move would be. Now since we are all attempting to quarantine and stay as far away from COVID-19 as possible, keep in mind that Pearl Jam postponing was one of the first dominoes to fall and the news coming before bigger news such as the cancellation of March Madness gave us a major shock. Regardless of that, we do our best to put together an episode featuring a really unique setlist. If you’ve been a listener of this show since day one, you’ll remember how obsessive Matt was with hearing the song Big Wave live. Since this is our first occasion we’ve had to cover the song, Matt makes his return to the podcast for the first time in 9 months. Randy and Matt get excited that both of their white whales are back to back on this show and have somewhat of a regret for not taking the short drive to Connecticut two days after the MSG shows of 2008. Also joining us on this show is Dave JanTausch from LiveFootsteps.org, a statistical Pearl Jam tour tracker site that focuses on advanced numbers of the band’s live catalog. Dave was at this show and will talk about some of his favorite moments, including an accident that almost ruined the show for him entirely.

Coming off the heels of a major tour announcement where the band will be postponing the first leg of their Gigaton tour, we use the mantra “the show must go on” and use this time to continue to reminisce over the history of Pearl Jam. For now we go back Around The World to this year’s first stop in Europe discussing Budapest, Hungary from 1996. This is their only show in the country to date, but if all goes as planned they’ll be making their long awaited return this summer. This was a nice little No Code era show that might get lost in the shuffle. The most notable moment from this show is likely the live debut of Lost Dog, Black, Red, Yellow. We talk a lot about the No Code era during this tour and whether the band might’ve thought they were losing steam with their fanbase due to the record’s poor reputation at the time. But the band took it with stride and were still able to utilize the new songs in unique ways live. The show has fantastic versions of No Code tracks Who You Are and Habit as well as great performances of Daughter and Immortality. Joining us for this episode is Branden Palomo from the Better Band Podcast. If you want to be a guest on his show, reach out to him via social media on Facebook or Twitter.

When you think of shows from the modern era that are known for their rare gems and put it up against the set list from this Chicago performance 26 years ago, it would still be considered rare. Today’s episode features some of the earliest performances of the best tracks off of Vitalogy such as Last Exit, Not For You and Spin The Black Circle as well as songs that would be considered impossible to hear in 2020. As Ed battled a cold in front of 2,500 fan club members only days after selling out a 13,000 Chicago Stadium, he declared very early on that they were gonna play a bunch of random shit. The Vitalogy songs were still in their early stages so the fans were treated to a preview of the future, but they were also treated to some of the rarest songs in their catalog from that time. Chaser songs such as Hard To Imagine, Alone and fan club song Angel for the most part are songs that people who have been to multiple shows in the last decade or two probably have yet to witness. Can’t forget the magic number 4 on this show as many of the songs mentioned above were being played for their fourth time, including Yellow Ledbetter. The biggest moment from this show developed from Ed’s shenanigans during Porch as he had a scare after diving off an amplifier. Ed put on a hell of a show making the crowd think he was legitimately injured before finishing off another furious version of the song. Thanks to our Patron Dylan Sumpter for requesting this episode!

We travel back around the world to look into one of the shows from the 2003 Japan tour. This being an early show from the Riot Act era, the band was still getting a feel for how the new songs worked on the live stage. Joining us for this episode is patron Eddie Quintana to talk about his passion for the album and the era. Nagoya is a unique show, but one that doesn’t get brought up enough in the pantheon of Pearl Jam performances. It took place in a small college theater holding only a few thousand in attendance, and while Eddie had to use a translator to connect with the crowd, the usual songs with sing-along sections such as Better Man and Daughter lacked their usual punch. It’s interesting to witness this as we break down how the call and response in the hit songs fell by the wayside in some of these Japanese shows. Another thing that made this show different centers around a lengthy, jammy improv in the middle of the set without Eddie’s presence followed up by a completely different take on Immortality. The jammy songs were certainly in the forefront as we’ll discuss a tremendous rendition of You Are that fit the mold of this set. Other Riot Act era songs that we don’t get to discuss often such as Love Boat Captain, Get Right and the LO4L debut of Bu$hleaguer will get major focus as well.

In 2018, sandwiched between The Home Shows and two nights at historic Wrigley Field, Pearl Jam headed to Big Sky country in Missoula, Montana to benefit Rock2Vote and Sen. Jon Tester’s re-election. On this week’s Live on 4 Legs, hosts John Farrar and Chris Buckley give the local boy, bassist Jeff Ament, some love as he takes center stage for this concert, featuring Pilate, Lowlight, Bee Girl, and other Ament-centric material, as well as pointed covers of Know Your Rights, Imagine, and Throw Your Hatred Down. We’ll also spend time discussing the most controversial poster in Pearl Jam’s history depicting the White House in a blaze with the former President’s carcass remains burnt to the skull. Thanks to patron Dan Opallo for picking this week’s show to cover!