In this episode we dive back into our Seattle Series celebrating the 30th anniversary of the band by reliving the best hometown stories. This one may be the cream of the crop. Everybody knows it, you’ve all seen the pictures, maybe you’ve even imitated the antics at some point in your youth. This episode dives right in to the infamous Drop In The Park show from 1992. We’ll talk about how this show had some hiccups getting underway in May of 92 where just days before the event was set to happen, the mayor of Seattle canceled it due to safety and traffic concerns. The band pushed back, especially because it was an event to encourage voter registration, and they were able to reschedule it to September only a week after finishing up the Lollapalooza tour. And of course there is the show… and Ed and what he did. It goes down in history as one of the craziest stunts he’s ever pulled. It was fun to go back and basically do a play by play of this as it was all happening. It’s one of the band’s most iconic moments and images and we discuss where this stands on the all-time most important shows list.
Episodes Covering Pearl Jam Concerts in 1992
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.
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.
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.
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.