Let’s not just cover one show in this episode, let’s play two! With the band about to entertain the masses at Fenway Park this weekend, we wanted to get you guys a two for one special since we weren’t able to cover a Boston show for the main platform. This happens to be their stint for Lollapalooza. Two very similar sets with different touches thrown in. We’ll talk about all of those Ten songs and little appearances from some other songs you may recognize, including Jane’s Addiction, Aerosmith and a Pearl Jam song that hadn’t been born yet.
Episodes Covering Pearl Jam Concerts in 1992
With all of our coverage of cities on the upcoming tour, we found ourselves in a bit of a logjam this past week. Since Philly shows were happening prior to the normal episode release date, it made more sense to go with the Baltimore 2013 show for the main platform. It also helps that there are a full array of early Philly shows we could’ve gone back to when there’s been a total of… one Baltimore show, so that why we’ve decided to give this episode the Patreon exclusive treatment!
This show took place when the band was just starting to surge. Unplugged had already been recorded, and by the time that they returned home after their run in Europe, Americans had caught on to them and they starting to become high in demand. The night following this show would be their first stint playing SNL, so the band was feeling good about where they stood. Though Ed makes a comment about wanting to leave Seattle to get away from being labeled a “grunge band”, the spirits were incredibly high and the energy was palpable. All of the classic Ten songs were performed in their original sound, and we even get a quick appearance from Release in this set. Of course we’ll see Ed’s hijinks become a part of this as he does what was so commonplace in this era during Porch – his best Evel Knievel impersonation.
This episode takes us back to a time when Pearl Jam’s popularity was skyrocketing. MTV Unplugged had took place, the Jeremy music video was out and the band garnered a lot of attention traveling on the Lollapalooza tour as one of the afternoon openers. This episode covers a Lollapalooza show from Fairfax County, Virginia where the band were in their prime and “all the rage”. The episode will cover not just Pearl Jam’s impact on the festival, but also the festival’s impact on the culture of the early 90’s.
This show is seen as somewhat of a pillar moment for the band this summer because as they were rising up the charts, so were their Seattle brethren Soundgarden traveling on the same tour. Right around this time as both Vedder and Cornell became the defacto faces of the grunge scene, people were starting to pick up on the collaboration that they did for Temple Of The Dog a year prior. Hunger Strike was blossoming into a massive hit and wasn’t something that was played often until they decided to join forces at this show. From there, it became one of those rare moments that people salivated for. They’d continue to bust it out on occasion during this tour, including during a random side stage performance in Phoenix.
This episode is produced a little bit differently since we are only working with eight songs. You’ll get the rare experience of listening to an entire show on this podcast! Of course we stop and chat in between, but every song will be played in full with Even Flow as a lone exception. This episode also features a conversation about the newly retired Aerosmith and how that happening this past week tied in perfectly with this episode.
Pearl Jam was on a special run as the season turned to spring in March of 1992. They were headlining small club shows in Europe, clicking well together on stage and getting incredible reactions from the crowd who knew the catalog. While we have looked into some of the highly praised Netherlands shows from this run (Den Haag, Utrecht), this episode touches up on a show that is a bit forgotten about from Eindhoven.
Being the 20th show on a rigorous touring schedule, being on the road can kind of catch up with you after a while. After canceling a show two days prior to give Ed vocal rest, he came into this show without the normal zip on his fastball. Songs that are usually known for high-octane intensity were a bit laboring on Ed’s voice. We’ll talk about that, and how the setlist likely needed rearranging to try and capture momentum, but we’ll also talk about some of the major issues that they were having with crowds at the time. During this version of Alive, there are multiple moments of commotion – a guys loses his “spectacles” and stage divers are carelessly jumping on and off the stage whilst kicking people in the head and stepping all over the band’s gear. We’ll focus on a message from an irate Jeff Ament, who had just about enough of the shenanigans happening at the time.
Also, we had some new sound bytes revealed from Dark Matter this week! We re-recorded our original opening segment that was about it being a little bit too quiet with a month to go until the release date because we got snippets of both Something Special and Running within the days between our recording schedule. We’ll talk about what we hear from those songs, and we’ll break down Stone Gossard’s interview with Jonathan Cohen for SPIN.com.
With a busy weekend covering the final three Pearl Jam shows of the 2023 tour, we’ve decided to make this week’s episode a little bit on the shorter side so we could focus our attention on the Texas shows rather than spend nights heavily editing. So to do that, we had to go back to an era that had significantly smaller sets. Which is why we chose a show from the University of Kansas campus that took place as Pearl Jam was firmly on the rise back in May of 1992. With this little gathering marketed as “Day On The Hill” by the University, they paid the band $3,000 to play this show. It was booked back in January of 1992 when Alive was their only song in circulation, but as the next five months rolled around, no one in Lawrence, Kansas expected this show to be this huge. 18,000 students took over the little outdoor park venue as the band continued their meteoric ascension.
Now it’s pretty clear that what was documented from this day is actually an incomplete show. We’ll get into the details of all that in the episode, but what we do get to see is your classic 1992 affair – the band bouncing around the stage at high energy, crowd surfers galore, songs played at full intensity and of course, stage climbing antics from one Eddie Vedder. The scene is very similar to one set a few months later at home in Seattle for the legendary Drop In The Park show. When Porch breaks into it’s solo, Ed assesses the situation and climbs all the way up to the top of the stage to go swinging. It’s always a sight to behold, and we’ll break down every step of the journey.
We’ll also go through a summary of the tour up to the point of recording, and for those of you who like to study up beforehand, we release our entire rest of the year episode schedule for 2023! But most importantly, our Gear Guru is back! Javier will check in on versions of Why Go and Porch from this day.
A little bonus episode for you guys this week! Thought this would be a nice attachment to the Portland show because they basically bookend this little US run that happens in the spring of 1992. We picked this for two reasons – 1) It’s a great excuse to discuss the legendary First Avenue. 2) It felt like we needed to do another Minnesota show in preparation for September, so this was an easy choice. Despite this boot not sounding all that great, We put together an interesting episode here for a show that was the follow up to the iconic MTV Unplugged taping. We’ll get into that, the venue, and we even do our best to guess what Ed is saying in each of his speeches due to this rough recording. Yes, we’ll probably talk about that all episode, but there is a cool Easter egg attached with that that also has an attachment to the local area. See if you can figure it out!
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.
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!
**Warning** This episode touches up on the topic of depression and suicide. If you are experiencing suicidal thoughts, don’t be afraid to call for help. For immediate assistance, dial 1800-273-8255, or dial 988 to reach the suicide prevention hotline. Please, take care of yourselves.
It’s been five years since we’ve lost Chris Cornell, a death that has shook up this community and a life that is dearly missed to this day. To celebrate his memory, we’ll be talking about one of the most memorable moments where he and Pearl Jam linked up at a show, the Lollapalooza tour closer in 1992. It came at a time where Temple of the Dog was discovered a year after the release of the album due to the collaboration between Pearl Jam and Soundgarden members. Performances of Hunger Strike at that time almost never happened, so looking back on it now and what we know, the moment is that much more special.
We talk a lot about Cornell’s life, his talent and the impact he made. This episode pays tribute to everything he provided for music, art, and the fans who cherish it.
On the date of the 30th anniversary of MTV Unplugged, we released an episode breaking down every moment from that show and telling every story. Two months later and there’s still more to tell! You may remember going back to the earliest episodes this year that at the end, we asked our listeners if they knew anyone who was at this show to get in touch with us. We were waiting for that email, but unfortunately it never happened. Flash forward to the date that our episode is release, we get a comment on Twitter from someone who tells us that he was indeed there that night. One thing led to another, and here we are sharing the story of Ken Lesnik and what it was like to be in the building that night. As an employee of MTV, Ken was always invited to network events, but Unplugged took place just months after he left. A wild story about him being in the right place at the right time got him in the building that night. He’ll talk about the amazing experience that he had being very close to the front and how this night solidified his fandom. This episode is being released 30 years to the day of the first airing of this on television. There is never a bad time to talk about this legendary show, but there’s no more perfect time than right now. Enjoy Ken’s stories!
It’s one of the most important Pearl Jam shows in their history with iconic moments that are likely engrained in your memory from as far back as 1992. In this episode, we’re celebrating the 30th anniversary of the MTV Unplugged performance. We’ll touch up on everything that led up to this very moment happening. How they were called to do the show when they were in Europe and had less than three days to prepare before performing. It kind of came off the heels of that legendary Zurich show where they played on such a small stage that they were basically forced to switch over to acoustic, and like to PJ20 movies tells it, that moment led directly to this event happening. We’re going to tell some stories from this show that maybe you’re a bit unfamiliar with, including an incident where the band was forced to rent equipment due to their own not arriving from Europe in time. You’ll get to hear some quotes from Jeff, Mike and Stone discussing about how this and other facets of the event happened. At the time they returned, the band saw their popularity in the states rise as Ten was sneaking onto Billboard’s Top 20. The songs! Of course the songs are important. Some of the most impactful performances of all-time. From a stand out State Of Love And Trust proving that most of their catalog was going to transition well, to Black being one of the greatest Eddie vocal performances of all-time including the absolutely iconic We Belong Together tag, and then of course, Porch. We’ll go through and break down the entire moment where Eddie wrote PRO CHOICE!!! on his arm. Again, just legendary moments. And we’ll share maybe a story you haven’t heard, do you know what Vs. song was being played in a commercial break during this? We’ll have your answer in the episode! Also joining us for this one is our friends at Hallucinogenic Recipe, Patrick and Brian, who will talk about the aspects of finding this on bootleg and some of the strange titles that were given to State Of Love And Trust.
“Another wild, fabulous Holland show… in other words, it has to be seen to be believed” If you’ve frequented the Five Horizons site over the past few decades, you would know that most of their show descriptions have a detailed re-telling of the performances, elaborating on the songs and speeches to give you the sense of what happened. If you’ve read the description for this Rotterdam show before, you’d know that the quote above would be the only indication of what this show was about. At the time, they hosted video on their site, but now you can find this entire show on YouTube, so for many of you that may have read this over the past handful of years, you may have no idea what you’re in for. Let’s just say Mike McCready gives us his all. Along with all that… this was the final show of Pearl Jam’s five-night run in Holland during March of 1992. The band his always spoken highly of this run of shows and how much they loved the area and the local fans. We discussed Den Haag and Utrecht already, but this one is a good end-cap of their European run in 1992. In the last two episodes, we talked a lot about stage divers presence and how it interfered with what was happening on stage. This time, Ed takes a new approach putting a stop to it before it even began. The crowd obliges, for the most part, and the band’s energy is truly able to resonate on stage. The band is having fun playing the music they are proud of writing, and when they’d head back to the states in a week’s time, they’ll find out that everything has changed.
You may have seen the shirt, now it’s time to hear the show! This episode is about the show emanating from the Tivoli club in Utrecht. It’s continuing our 4-show mini-series highlighting the best of their March run from 1992. To help us out once again to discuss the bootleg aspect of the show is Patrick and Brian from Hallucinogenic Recipe (@elusiverecipe on Twitter). This show has a lot of very similar talking points as the Den Haag show did – it’s a very similar, near identical setlist structure, the band sounds great and there are countless amounts of stage divers and crowd surfers getting involved with the show again. It happens more often in here than in Den Haag, and the approach Ed takes is a little more relaxed this time. Even after Jeff has an issue with his pedals getting messed with. The crowd comes into play towards the end with an absolutely bizarre scene happening on stage. We’ll also discuss what we know of the origin of the famous Tivoli shirt, the bike girl who Eddie befriended at this show and would be reunited with 3 years ago, Ed’s off day tattoo and how Mike was able to get away with saying “suck my ass” and “jerkoff” in a Dutch interview.
This episode kicks off our run of 1992 shows celebrating the 30th anniversary of four classics. We go to The Netherlands and focus on one of the best and most notable shows from the first European run in February and March out of Den Haag. This was one of the first of the great soundboard recordings that circulated, and for that, we are bringing in our brother podcast Hallucinogenic Recipe to talk about the trading and collecting aspect that made this a popular show within the community. This show has everything you want from 1992, good Ed speeches, a dangerous Porch, one of the best I’ve Got A Feeling jams ever and the seldom played original improv built around Fugazi’s Suggestion in Saying No. We’ll talk about this rendition and why it doesn’t go down as one of their original songs in the same way an improv like Outta My Mind does. Though getting it here and almost no where else (that we at least have a recording of) gives this show a little extra weight and makes it timeless. “That’s my little brother!” Ed shouts when Jeff cedes his bass to his brother Jason during I’ve Got A Feeling. While it may take some time for Jason to catch up with the band, we also get a wild array of tags within this 15 minute (you heard me correctly) slobberknocker. One of the best versions that again can be directly traced to this show as a defining moment recognized by fans of all ages.
We’re back with our third episode featuring extensive and exclusive coverage of Pearl Jam’s late night performances. In this one we’ll discuss the important Bob Dylan 30th anniversary show broadcast on PPV where Mike and Ed performed Masters Of War. It was on this night that the guys mingled with some of the legends of rock n roll, names that would be synonymous to the story of Pearl Jam such as Neil Young and Tom Petty, as well as George Harrison, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed, Johnny Cash and the voice of a generation himself – Bob Dylan. We’ll talk about a conversation between Eddie and Bob that potentially changed the entire landscape of Pearl Jam, as well as one of Ed’s greatest vocal performances in this tremendous Masters Of War.
Welcome to a brand new series that we’re featuring on Live On 4 Legs! In this series, we take an in-depth look into Pearl Jam’s stints on late night TV. Everything from award shows to band tributes to plenty of Letterman appearances promoting new albums, it’ll all be covered extensively. These are classic performances that sort of stand alone in Pearl Jam’s pantheon, and since our focus is usually dedicated towards full 30+ song setlists, we needed to create an opportunity to give these big moments the Live On 4 Legs treatment they deserve. This is the second episode of our brand new running series that focuses on the 1992 MTV VMAs. After an Unplugged performance for the ages elevated this band to the height of the Grunge phenomena, Pearl Jam was the hottest band in the world. They had just released a new music video for Jeremy that debuted to instant rave reviews due to its controversial subject matter and imagery, but you couldn’t turn on MTV for five minutes in September of 1992 without hearing the song. Invited to perform at the TV station’s less than prestigious award show that rewarded music for their visual art, they made a conscious effort to suggest performing a song that wasn’t their brand new hit, but with major pushback from the network, they didn’t get their way. The anger seemed to fuel Ed during this performance as we get one of the most vigorous and intense versions of Jeremy ever played.
Welcome to a brand new series featured for our Patrons! In this series, we take an in-depth look into Pearl Jam’s stints on late night TV. Everything from award shows to band tributes to plenty of Letterman appearances promoting new albums, it’ll all be covered extensively. These are classic performances that sort of stand alone in Pearl Jam’s pantheon, and since our focus is usually dedicated towards full 30+ song setlists, we needed to create an opportunity to give these big moments the Live On 4 Legs treatment they deserve.
The pilate episode of this series will focus on the band’s first of four performances on SNL. Taking place back in 1992 before anyone had actually witnessed what transpired on MTV: Unplugged, this was Pearl Jam’s first opportunity to present themselves in a live television setting. They were up for the opportunity and in typical PJ fashion they blew everyone away. A performance of their first single, “Alive”, would wet the appetite before coming out with an intense and memorable “Porch” to conclude their stay. We’ll talk about the performances, some of the band’s mannerisms on camera and of course, we’ll tackle Ed’s controversial, statement making t-shirt.
Since this is a podcast focusing on a TV series, I get to say BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! After you finish with this episode presented exclusively through the Patreon platform, episode two will be available for you to check out on our regular podcast platforms! Check out our episode on the 1992 VMAs featuring the intense and memorable Jeremy performance. This will be the only such occasion where we split the series between platforms as the rest will only be found through Patreon!
Happy 30th anniversary to Ten! Since we can never have enough content on the seminal record that kickstarted it all, we’ve decided to follow up on the Philadelphia Ten show by going back and covering the original full album show from 1992 in Munich, Germany. It was the end of a pretty important early tour for the band. They were finishing up their first ever run of Europe which featured a lengthy set of shows in the UK, Italy, The Netherlands and then finally ended with 5 dates in Germany. The crowds were intimate and responsive to the new record, and since the band was basically playing it every night anyway, they ended the tour by playing it start to finish. Which means with fewer songs in their arsenal and not wanting this tour to end, what could they possibly have played to extend this night? We’ll also talk about the record and how some of the song placements were weird even for 1992.
This episode we head back to summer 1992 for a Lollapalooza afternoon set at Alpine Valley. Two of our Patrons join us to break it all down, Patrick Boegel and Dani King. Dani was there and gives us the inside story, and, for the second episode in a row, we have an EPIC post-show story that you’ll want to stick around for! We’ll talk about some classic Ten songs that were hitting their peak, an early tease of a fan-favorite Lost Dog, why the studio recording of Baba O’Riley is still in the vault, and one of the craziest Porch climbs Ed’s ever done!
March of 1992 was somewhat of a breakthrough for Pearl Jam. After returning from a successful tour overseas featuring memorable shows in Germany and The Netherlands, they found themselves in a major spotlight getting the call to perform on MTV’s Unplugged. Although it wouldn’t premiere for 2 months, the band’s rise was imminent and their popularity in America had grew exponentially from the time they left. This show at The Cabaret Metro in Chicago, as documented in the Let’s Play Two documentary, was important for so many reasons. Not only was it a hometown show for both Ed and The Smashing Pumpkins, who acted as the opening act, it was a platform where they had to prove that they belonged up on that stage headlining club shows and even bigger shows to come. The guys from U2 were there that night to scout them to be an opening act for what would be the Italian run of the Zooropa tour. Everything seemed to be falling into place at the time. This performance is classic 1992. You have some improvs, including Rockin’ In The Free World played on the spot due to a drum issue, great performances of Ten songs and an encore where they shared the stage with the Pumpkins saluting them in their hometown.