Pearl Jam Podcast Episodes

Buffalo 2013 was the second show on the Lightning Bolt tour, and from the early onset you were able to get a big picture idea of what this tour was going to become. Randy attended this show, so he recaps all of the memories of deciding two nights before to take the 6 hour trek up to Buffalo to see the band. Does this show have any major memorable moments that non-attendees gravitate towards? Probably not, but it was an example of a show for people that were in the building would tell you how energetic the atmosphere was. A good mixture of album tracks spread within the Lightning Bolt songs they were promoting, including three from No Code which has become a rarity in recent years. If you are a Vs. fan, chances are you will enjoy this show. Especially the encore where they ripped through five songs from the album within an eleven song span. We’ll also talk about the inclusion of the arena slow burn set and how it set the stage for the entirety of the 2013 tour.

Laissez les bons temps rouler! We take the show down to the Big Easy to cover the Voodoo Festival from the Lightning Bolt tour. Joining us as our guest for this episode is host of the Antiquiet Podcast, Johnny Firecloud, who recently released an episode chronicling his Pearl Jam fandom. If you listen to that before you listen to this, we won’t be offended in the least! While we’ve tried to stray away from festival shows as much as possible, this one has a unique and emotional feel to it that you can’t replicate at other festivals. Former NFL player Steve Gleason was on hand to create the set list with powerful renditions of songs that defined the tone of the night. It would kick off with a surreal rendition of Sirens and continue with powerful performances of In My Tree, Given To Fly, Inside Job, Present Tense and Rearviewmirror. While the show tugs at your heart strings, it also wouldn’t be a show in New Orleans without a party atmosphere. The band invited some very special guests on stage that Eddie got to have some fun with. You’re gonna want to bring your teddy bear for this one.

This episode covers the very first vault show from the Moore Theatre in 1992. The band trekked across North America in support of Ten throughout the Fall and early Winter of 1991. After a two-week break in the beginning of January 1992, the boys returned to Seattle for a homecoming show at the legendary Moore Theatre. The band sounds incredible from start to finish. Ed’s voice is in perfect shape after 14 days off and the entire band seems to be relaxed and loving the atmosphere of playing in front of an energetic hometown crowd of about 1,350. The footage used in the “Even Flow” music video was professionally filmed at this show, while a number of famous early photos by Lance Mercer were captured here as well. A rough audience recording of the show was all that existed among bootleg collections for nearly 20 years, until the band decided to open up the mysterious “Vault” in 2011. A remastered version of the original recording was circulated at the PJ20 festival, much to the delight of diehard fans and those aware of the magic of this show. Single CDs in cardboard sleeves simply titled “VAULT #1” were distributed at the destination weekend. This show also marked the first time the band covered The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” although the song is omitted from the vault recording. John Farrar and Chris Buckley team up to host their first show together, exploring this early performance that offers a glimpse into the band’s early era and formative years just before they exploded to superstardom.

This episode takes a look into the Fenway Park Night 2 show from 2016, but if you’re looking for set breakdown and song analysis you won’t find it in this episode. For this show I’m joined by my wife Jillian who I was lucky to attend this show alongside. As Jillian and I prepared to wed on the weekend of this recording, we talk about how this show bonded us closer as a couple. She knew what she was walking into – a baseball park full of diehards who made a weekend event of the show. As it was her first Pearl Jam live experience, she was able to witness first hand this crazy lifestyle that I was living as a massive fan. A lot of what we talk about in this show is her intake at the time and how much she has grown to love and appreciate the band since that night. Most of us who live and die with the band have friends, relatives and significant others who don’t quite understand this universe, but when you expose them to the live atmosphere their perception changes. One thing that we bring up is how this show helped her understand why and how this band and this community have made such an impact on my life, and knowing this grew us even closer together. Also, we usually have rabid fans on this show, so this episode brings in a unique experience from someone who was once on the outside and is still learning new things to love about this band every day.

We are back to our 2019 long MSG series taking a look at every show the band performed at the World’s Most Famous Arena. This episode we cover Night 1 of 2010 – a show that gets overshadowed by the magic of the following night, but in its own right has its memorable moments. Randy was in attendance on this night, and although it was over nine years ago and the memories have faded a bit, there are big moments that still stick out to him as some of his favorite live moments to this day. Most of the moments were courtesy of the red hot crowd that poured their heart and soul into this show. Renditions of Elderly Woman, Once, Crazy Mary and Indifference as the closer have incredible crowd participation, so much so that you can hear the crowd better on the boot than you can Ed. But with all of this show’s ups there were also some downs from this night. While the crowd and overall performance of the band was a huge strength, the meaty part of the first set left a little to be desired. They got off to a hot start, but after Even Flow the set lacked a powerful punch and defining moment. As John mentions in the episode, it felt like they randomly chose tracks from different albums and blindly placed them in the set. Lots of topics to cover here for all you set list nerds!

We’re celebrating our first anniversary episode by covering the show that won the listener’s poll – The Gorge from 2005! For those who entered the poster contest, don’t forget to wait listen to the end of the episode to see if you won! The Gorge Amphitheater is a beautiful venue in the state of Washington, scenic and smack dab in the middle of nature. The band took advantage of their surroundings, especially in the early part of the set playing a 9-song sit down to start the show. It’s chock full of great highlights including Low Light being played as the sun went down and the first appearance of Hard To Imagine in 7 years. But the theme of the night was centered around a rock n roll legend who would take the stage at The Gorge the following nights. Ed kept begging and pleading with Tom Petty to come down from his hotel room and join the band on stage, including starting numerous chants as well as jabs at the Heartbreaker. Finally after the realization that he wasn’t gonna come, Ed calls an audible in the set list and plays I Won’t Back Down for Tom.

We’re happy to have on Colin Rodger and Martin Higgins, who have put together this year’s PJ Con – a show featuring tribute band Lost Dogs in Glasgow, Scotland where all of the benefits go toward supporting Diabetes UK. Pearl Jam has only been to Scotland twice, the last time being 19 years ago. Colin and Marty spend this episode reliving their only hometown show and the memories of being in the crowd, feeling the energy of the show and coming back with a little mud on their faces. High points include Sometimes, Present Tense and Given To Fly , but there’s also a glaring omission in this show that Randy takes issue with.

This episode we take a trip on the festival circuit, but since all great festivals can’t happen with just one band, we’ve enlisted another podcast host to help us out for this one. Tom Kwei, the host of the Alphabetallica Podcast joins us to tell the story of his first and only Pearl Jam show. When you think festivals and Pearl Jam’s connection to them, you immediately think of the Roskilde tragedy. At this time in 2006, they had just jumped back into playing festivals with this show being the second played since the incident six years prior. With that said, the band was mindful of what was going on in the crowd and announced that they would stop playing if they had to just to make sure everyone was safe, As for the set list, when you think festivals you usually think that it’s a collection of greatest hits, and no doubt they played the hits at this show, but it felt like they put a little bit more into the set to give the hardcore fans a chance to see something special. Songs such as Sad, Soon Forget and Crown Of Thorns were all played among Better Man, Jeremy and Alive making for a balanced group of songs.

One of the most pivotal shows in Pearl Jam’s history, the 1992 Pinkpop Festival has been discussed and shared from bootleg VHS tapes to online forums for over 25 years, and this episode breaks down why this show is such an important part of the band’s legacy. While the Seattle scene was still blossoming into something big, Pearl Jam hadn’t played a show in front of a massive audience before. They were still used to playing club shows with only a couple thousand, maybe even hundred fans attending. Pinkpop estimated to have 60,000 people in the crowd making it the prime stage for the band to bring their a-game.

Their energy in a rain soaked day was unmatched. Anyone who has watched this show before knows the moments – Jeff running around like a maniac, Ed climbing the scaffold during Even Flow, and of course an iconic stage dive during Porch that has been a major part of the band’s legacy. With a little less than an hour on stage, they created moments that are still talked about to this day.

This episode is the debut of co-host John Farrar. We dig into a show that has made a major impact on this band over the years, Soldier Field from 1995. There was a lot going on with the band at the time – the fallout from the Ticketmaster lawsuit, the fallout from Eddie’s food poisoning incident in San Francisco, No Code’s presence looming and trying to follow up what would be the final Grateful Dead performance with Jerry Garcia. The band was handed a major task on a major stage and guess what? They hit a home ru… err, okay NFL Stadium, they scored a touchdown. We’ll talk a lot about the raw sound of 1995 and how the band was gelling with Jack Irons at the time. Songs such as Corduroy, Habit and Not For You were major players, but they also pulled out some weirder stuff such as Everyday People by Sly and the Family Stone. That mixed with Let Me Love Open The Door made for an unforgettable moment on this night.

This episode is special for many reasons, so where do we start? We’re on our sixth installment of our MSG series and it’s something we’ve discussed a lot on the pod because it was Randy’s Pearl Jam live debut! There’s a lot to unpack in this episode with many memories to look back on, but the song with the most sentimental value on this show is far and away Release. It was the opener and obviously the first song Randy ever heard live and he’ll take you through all of the emotions of what it was like to have that one moment that you can never relive again. We finally get to discuss a long running inside joke we’ve shared on the podcast “I wrote the song, and I fucked that up” that McCready exclaimed while out of tune on Marker In The Sand. That and many other moments are brought up that Matt and Randy look back fondly of after 11 years of listening to this bootleg. Also, you’ll learn the definition of a Sobelgasm and maybe Ace Frehley will wander his way into conversation.

This episode we’ll talk about the St. Louis show that occurred during the time of filming for the Touring Band 2000 DVD and what most people remember from that compilation is a moment that came from this show. Eddie sees a woman named Kimberly Rae Schaefer interpreting sign language on the side of the stage and decides to invite her up to do a song so the entire crowd can see her sign during a performance of Given To Fly. It’s one of the more heartwarming moments in the band’s history that’s remembered fondly to this day. We’ll also tap into Matt Cameron channeling his inner Jack Irons as he was still transitioning a bit style-wise at the time. Versions of Hail, Hail and In My Tree sound as they were originally intended to, but his performance on Parting Ways ends up being what steals the show.

We’re taking the time machine all the way back to the band’s most pivotal and successful year in 1992 to focus on a show played in Zurich, Switzerland. Guest host Chris Buckley joins the show to talk about it’s importance in the band’s legacy as they perform something incredibly rare that hasn’t been done in the modern era of the band. This show took place 10 days after the iconic Pinkpop Festival show and as the band continued to grow more popular, the fans wanted to get to know more. This is the first time in public that Eddie makes mention of the Mamasan Trilogy – the demo that was given to him by Jack Irons that acted as his audition for what would eventually become the ever famous Mookie Blaylock. I kid. So everyone who follows the band pretty much understands the story, Alive, Once and Footsteps all go together as a mini rock opera of sorts, but it was during this stretch of shows where they played the three songs consecutively for the first time. They haven’t performed the Trilogy since 1993. Outside of talking about the rare stuff, we get to tap into a fiery and angst-filled late-20’s aged Eddie Vedder who gave us top-notch performances of some of the band’s anthems from that time. Versions of Leash, Porch and Rockin In The Free World go down as some of the best of the time period and we’ll get to make some comparisons to what we hear from the band out of these songs today.

Our episode is from where? Tampa. You got it. And although we lose Matt to the injured list, we’re able to get an excellent fill in at the hands of Patreon donor Eddie Quintana who joined us to discuss his first show. First shows are interesting, what do you want and what do you expect out of them? Well, for one you want the hits. Check mark on that because the band didn’t just bust out the hits, nearly all of them were home runs. Secondly, it would be nice to see something that might be a little rare at your first show. In The Moonlight, Getaway, Love Boat Captain – those are all pretty nice gets. Top it off with a few covers like Imagine, Sonic Reducer and Baba O’Riley and you’ll be begging for the next tour to come around so you can get your next dose of all that awesomeness. The best thing to come out of this show happens to be an incredible story that happened to a fan named Bill Castrovince. Bill went on the Pearl Jam pages and requested the band to play Hard To Imagine that night. Anyone who knows the band knows that they only take requests when those requests are incredibly meaningful and this was precisely that. We’re proud to share Bill’s story of perseverance and inspiration on this episode and it’s a story that you won’t want to miss.

In our fifth installment of our year-long MSG series, we find the band returning to the mecca of entertainment for the first time in five years. Without an album to tour for or anything to promote, they had a blank canvas to fill where they could experiment a little bit. One of their experiments was inviting three backup singers on stage to perform three songs that were rare to hear at the time – All Night, Who You Are and W.M.A. It wasn’t one of the most enthralling parts of the show, but it is something that the band hasn’t dabbled with much in their history so we spend a little time discussing it. Many of our listeners wrote in and spoke of the show as being one of the weaker in their MSG run. We’ll let you make that determination after listening to the episode, but we do find points in this show where we point out that the set completely missed the mark. What made it fall flat? The answer consists of such simple Pearl Jam set list math that it’s obviousness may make you realize how you can’t overlook a working formula.

This episode we’re joined by Pete Griesbach from the Pearl Jam tribute band Last Exit. Pete attended this show back in 2005 and we’ll hear a story in this episode about how he avoided the dreaded Philly parking lot porta potties. This show is a tale of three very different sets. There is the first set – a tight and fast paced killer run with the high point featuring the “man trilogy”. Then the first encore takes on the role of the campfire set featuring four performances that were incredibly rare for the time period. And then there is encore two… a mish mosh of collective songs played without a distinct flow with far too many stops in-between songs for that late in the set. Although there’s a lot going on here, the most memorable moment of the night belongs to the ghost of Crazy Mary who was so disturbed during this performance that one of the amps busted mid-song. It was a crazy moment that led to the band putting together one of the strongest performances of the song in their history. An incredible collaboration from Mike and Boom brought the song back to life after nearly averting disaster.

If I were to wager a bet, I’d take a guess that not every American citizen, or American Pearl Jam fan, would be able to locate Hartford, Connecticut on a map or be able to give one distinction about the city that sets it apart from others. Hartford? Well, if you know your US capitals you may certainly know it. Remember the Hartford Whalers? Breakfasts come and go but The Whale only beats Vancouver once, maybe twice in a lifetime. Outside of that, there’s really not much else that distinguishes this random New England city from its counterparts. So why would we cover a Hartford show before we cover cities enriched in music history including the band’s hometown of Seattle or London, England? It’s this simple – when the band comes to town, it feels like the biggest city in the world. There’s a very special reason for that that I can’t reveal in writing, you’re just gonna have to listen and find out. Sure, I lived in Hartford County for nine years but when the band came to town back in 2010, I thought they’d treat this like any other random city without a professional sports franchise. Maybe no rare songs, no special crowd moments. Basically play the hits and peace out. But boy was I wrong. I was so wrong that the band on multiple occasions talked about how much they loved the XL Center and how much they were feeling the crowd. The crowd on this night was so special that they’d get to hear a song that would be played one time, one time only (until their return 3 years later) just because they had a good feeling about it. Their cover of Van Halen’s “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” on that night is living proof that if a crowd is gonna give the band all they got, the band is going to give you that much more in return. So I guess Hartford doesn’t seem so random anymore, does it?