Episode 253: Winnipeg, MB, CAN – 9/8/2005

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.


Episode 209: São Paulo, BRA – 12/3/2005

It’s been quite a long time since we’ve covered something from down in South America, but thankfully we rectify our mistake in this episode. We’re going down to São Paulo, Brazil to cover a show from Pearl Jam’s first tour in the continent that took place back in 2005. This was a Patreon requested episode from Mike Radtke, and we’ll tell his story about how he came across this when collecting official boots and why it’s stuck with him ever since.

As it goes for shows in Brazil, the crowd is the big highlight. Now the crowd wasn’t fully developed into the traditional Brazilian crowds where everybody sings along to the melody of a verse or chorus, but they certainly did their part to stand out. Crazy Mary is a full fledge sing-along, Black has a powerful moment that leaves Ed mesmerized, and during Daughter the crowd takes it open themselves to start an It’s OK tag. All of this from the very active crowd, along with an incident dealt with by security during Alive.

In our question of the week, we asked our Facebook and Twitter followers how often they go back to South American bootlegs, we run through every answer before taking a dive into the set!

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Episode 198: Hamilton, ONT, CA – 9/13/2005

It’s the final week of tour preparation as Pearl Jam finishes up the last of the Canadian dates, and I guess because the 2022 Hamilton show took place a day before this was released, it’s not quite a part of the preparation? But as you’ll hear many times in this spectacular Hamilton show from 2005, there is a lot to celebrate with this one.

We couldn’t do another Canadian show and not talk about 2005. This was the first time that the band got to experience Canada from end to end, hitting up all of the big towns like Toronto and Montreal, but also making pit stops in places like Thunder Bay, Kitchener and Halifax. The band expresses their admiration for the country, and they do it by raising a toast nearly every time that Ed speaks. It’ll be a running theme that all culminates in Go sounding like he did one too many.

This setlist on paper is mind blowing, and on stage it absolutely meets that expectation. We get the very rare appearance of Porch as the opening song in the set that kicks off some of the craziness, then an injection of Lost Dogs such as Sad and U. But there are so many show stealers in this that it’s hard to pick just one from Present Tense, Untitled/MFC, Harvest Moon and a hybrid of the normal and alternative takes from In My Tree.

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Episode 182: Missoula, MT – 8/29/2005

To finish our Vault series, we turn to the final Vault on our list – the Missoula 2005 show. This comes at an unfortunately opportune time a week after Jeff tested positive for Covid-19 forcing Pearl Jam to cancel the rest of their tour, but also we take the time to honor him and send our best wishes while covering a show in his home state. This was the first of a few Montana shows that doubled up as a campaign for US Senator John Tester, who in 2005 was looking to win the seat. This was the first show of the 2005 tour featuring legs in Canada and South America, so it could be seen as kind of a tune up in a way. But this was also a good indicator for some things that would happen during that tour year. There were some rarities broken out on this night that hadn’t been played since the mid-90’s. Bee Girl made an appearance for the first time since 1994 thanks to Jeff’s song writing prowess on it, and Black, Red, Yellow is played for the first time since 1996 thanks to Phil Jackson being in the crowd. This show also gets highly political with the climax happening in Daughter getting some aggression out against Fox News.

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Episode 161: Toronto, ONT – 9/19/2005

The 2022 season kicks off with a Patreon request straight from the 2005 Canadian tour leg. We go to Canada’s biggest city in Toronto to cover a show with a clear narrative from top to bottom that had the ultimate payoff at the end. Pearl Jam arrived into town as U2 completed a four-night stay to kick off the third leg of their Vertigo Tour, which meant an opportunity that allowed for Ed to appear on stage with them opened the door for Bono to make a guest appearance during this show. Make no bones about it, we let it be known our thoughts and feelings of U2 and Bono as a whole. You may share them or you may not, but ultimately a night packed with deep cut tributes to the pioneering arena rock titans is going to be memorable for many. But after about 83 or so U2 references weaved in and out of songs and speeches, it had to end with Bono blathering in some sort of self-inspired religious tongues during Rockin’ In The Free World. Would you expect it any other way? When U2 isn’t the forefront of conversation, we’ll get to talk about a strong show of mainly hits that features a special performance of Harvest Moon in the encore. And for all of you Jeff Ament fans, we kick off our year with a lovefest to the greatest bass player around.

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Episode 113: Saskatoon, SASK – 9/7/2005

We’re runnin’ back to Saskatoon! In this episode we head to the prairies to tackle a show in an unsuspecting Canadian location from the big 2005 tour. Joining us for a chat is author of the book This All Encompassing Trip, Jason Leung. His book touches up on what it’s like for a fan to follow the band around for an entire tour and since he just dropped a brand new hardcover book, he’ll join us to talk about all of his experiences in 2005 and 2006, including this Saskatoon show! So ask mentioned above, Saskatoon is not a prime concert location or vacation spot. It’s located in the prairies of the Saskatchewan province, which would lead you to believe that maybe this would be a smaller crowd that they may not get the kind of reaction that you’d expect from larger Canadian cities. But as you’ll hear in this show, the crowd was on fire for this one the same way a crowd in Boston, London or Sydney would be. After 15 years of the band utilizing the city as a fly over, the fans were ready to erupt and show their love. There are some great moments from this one that we can’t wait for you to hear. Attempting to appease the crowd in the encore, the band takes the stage with an impromptu version of The Guess Who’s Runnin’ Back To Saskatoon which was played on the spot unrehearsed. There’s also great versions of I Got Shit, Whipping, Daughter, Porch, Present Tense, Alive and Off He Goes jam packed into a short but very fun show!

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Episode 99: Santiago, CHL – 11/22/2005

Continuing our trip through South America, this episode we bring you to where it all began in 2005. This show from Santiago, Chile is the band’s first ever in the continent, and while there was some hesitation and concern due to the crowd’s size in the early onset, the boys found their comfort zone and fed off the energy of such a passionate group of fans. Joining us on this episode is our friend and Patron Javier Hervas who gets to talk a little about his experience of living down in Chile and never getting a chance to see the band. He’ll discuss the crowd and how early they were to get there, what it meant to hear the band kick off the show with Release and Corduroy as well as the influence that The Ramones had on South American fans and why their performance of I Believe In Miracles was so special from this night. We’ll listen to some outstanding performances and crowd reactions throughout this night including a powerful Even Flow, an outstanding version of Save You and a rendition of Black that blew the crowd away.

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Episode 46: The Gorge – 9/1/2005

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.

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Episode 36: Philadelphia, PA – 10/3/2005

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.

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Episode 20: Ottawa, ONT – 9/16/2005

This episode is the first time we dig into the Canadian tour of 2005 – the first time the band did a full tour leg specifically in the country. Patreon donor Patrick Boegel joins us to discuss his experience being in attendance this night in Ottawa. One of the things that Patrick talks about often is that the band was really in a good place during this time period. Riot Act was two years past and while they were beginning to focus on a new album that ended up being Avocado, they didn’t let that get in the way of what many say is one of their top tours in the history. What made this show special right off the bat was the first introduction of Don’t Gimme No Lip into the live catalog. The band was also joined on stage by the opening act Sleater-Kinney during their second encore to perform Harvest Moon, Leaving Here and Rockin’ In The Free World. Along with those two major talking points, we’ll get into how the band structured the beginning of their set as well as how they were able to make four straight hits at the end of the set work so well. Oh, and there’s also the roads in Canada that Eddie brought up… Or is there only one road in Canada?

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