Episodes Covering Pearl Jam Concerts in 2013

A new year, a new album and a new tour, 2013 was a big one for Pearl Jam. Riding high off of brand new album Lightning Bolt, the band took to North America for 25 shows in the fall of that year debuting brand new songs, bringing back long lost ones and revitalizing fan favorites. As they made their way across the country, they trekked to places where they hadn’t been to in a handful of years. One of those places happened to be Oklahoma City.

Now the Seattle natives and massive basketball fans went into the Thunderdome with a bit of a chip on their shoulder having lost their beloved Supersonics to them five years earlier. A big portion of this show features Ed and Jeff airing their grievances over the fall out of the move and sale, and even tossed in a not so subtle performance of the Backspacer track that shares the name with the former Seattle franchise. We’ll go a little bit further into the story of how this sale and move all came to be, as well as how the Sonics made a cultural impact on the game of basketball that tied into both NBA Jam and the Singles film.

Come for the Sonics talk and stay for the rest of the performances as we’ll break down a marathon 31-song setlist featuring plenty of tracks off the new album at the time, as well as a few unexpected moments thrown in!

The 2024 tour keeps rolling forward for the next week with our next stop in Baltimore, Maryland. Four years ago, the plan was to return to Baltimore before Covid happened, and then when it came time to reschedule the tour, the arena was under construction. So now they return for the first time in eleven years, which happens to be the only time they’ve played Baltimore as of this writing. This episode will feature the 2013 show, a show which is centrally focused on the loss of a music industry titan, Lou Reed.

The band set the mood from the early going here as the local crowd would get a show that features songs they were hoping to hear along with a little bit of the unexpected. The idea of the setlist and lyrical content can certainly be traced to how they were handling the recently announced death of the Velvet Underground front man. Songs like Hard To Imagine and Given To Fly can be considered choices that reflect this, plus an inclusion of Take A Walk On The Wild Side as a Daughter tag, and more direct dedications like Man Of The Hour and a cover of Waiting For The Man. We’ll also get into a little bit of a mystery as to what happened to Jeff at the end of this show, and a yellow shirt guy that had the time of his life.

Keep in mind that this episode was recorded prior to the Philadelphia shows, so any conversation that you’re begging to hear on Brain Of J will have to either wait for next week or is available to our on our Patreon reaction episode. We will however talk about MSG night 2 and how incredible that night was, plus a rating on how well Randy sang It’s The End Of The World As We Know It on karaoke!

This episode is jam packed with stories and breakdown from the first night of Pearl Jam’s two show stint at the Barclays Center in Brookyln from 2013. We invite a very special guest onto the pod, the former COO of Barclays and the Brooklyn Nets, Fred Mangione. Fred gives us an angle that we haven’t discussed a lot from the professional landscape – the business side of booking concerts. As a diehard fan of the band himself, Fred will talk about when the Barclays Center opened, there was stiff competition to pull acts away from Madison Square Garden, the biggest destination for entertainment acts in New York City. He’ll talk about how they managed to get Pearl Jam to pivot from their usual location to land them on the Lightning Bolt tour. We’ll also get to hear the story about how they were originally set to play in Brooklyn for 2016, as well as the details of how the band’s attendance record was broken thanks to The Boss.

Continuing with this month’s theme of focusing on shows that the hosts attended, Randy will talk about his stories from this night… or lack thereof. Riding solo at this show, we’ll start a conversation about how memories can tend to fade over time without having anyone to share them with. Going to shows alone is great, you get to dictate when you get in the building, you don’t care if you embarrass yourself if you sing a little louder and you can focus on your own fun. That’s all great in the present, but when looking back over a decade later, those memories tend to fade a little bit because you never created a bond with a friend going through the same experiences that you did. Now, it’s probably impossible to forget everything. We’ll spend some time talking about songs like Crown Of Thorns and Oceans where the memories have been kept fresh over the years.

There are no Gear Guru segments this week. Why you ask? Because the whole entire show is a Gear Guru segment! Javier joins Randy to help break down this show, and he’ll go in depth on songs like Release, Infallible and Yellow Moon.

One of the many reasons of how Pearl Jam has developed such a large following within their fanbase traveling near and far to their shows is that every single show is going to offer you something completely different than their last. Nearly everyone has a wish list of songs that they think they’ll never hear live, but keep hope alive that some day they will finally be in the building on the night they play one. Those rarities are cherished by this community, and if you happen to be at the right show at the right time, you may see multiple rare tracks that they may not play on the rest of the tour. Charlottesville 2013 was that kind of show. With 3 dates left before the end of the east coast run that year, the band unloaded on songs from all different eras that automatically made this one of the most talked about shows of the year.

The sets in 2013 were starting to grow longer without the appearance of an opener. Most shows pushed the 3-hour mark and delved into well beyond 30 songs played for each individual night. Charlottesville had a total of 35 songs that were played, and among the big talking points were songs like In My Tree, Grievance, Glorified G, Big Wave, Sad and the first appearance of Thumbing My Way since 2006. Those six performances alone created enough talking points for this to be recognized perhaps under the “instant classic” moniker. But there are many discussions to be had in this episode that could spell some of those pre-conceived notions. With 19 songs bunched in to a main set that lasted an hour and 25 minutes, there will be a lot of discussion here on how some of the flow and pacing felt a little bit off when attempting this enormous task. We’ll discuss how that compares to the more recent era where there are less songs played, but more time to give each one it’s moment to shine in a more methodical way.

We’ll hear from you guys on what type of Pearl Jam shows that you prefer to see, and we’ll get three excellent segments from the Gear Guru this week – Stone’s fingerpicking on Release, Mike using a monstrous Gretsch guitar on Glorified G, and he’ll dig into why this version of Whipping desperately needed to be aborted towards the end.

This episode has been a long time coming. On its 10th anniversary, we are covering an absolute classic Pearl Jam show from Hartford, Connecticut in 2013. Randy has talked a lot about this show in the past, and this episode will be a platform for him to share his memories of his experience, and perhaps get up on a soapbox a little bit. This show is living proof that this small city in Connecticut is one of the best Pearl Jam crowds you can find. We’ll talk about that extensively throughout the episode, but what you’ll witness is every time the crowd cheers, Ed is completely beside himself. One massive standing ovation after Last Exit perfectly set the tone for what this night would end up being.

While the crowd certainly is the #1 theme, it does share the #1 spot with the other important theme from this show. Less than a year after the fatal tragedy happened at Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, CT, this was Ed’s first moment to be able to react publicly to what had took place. After meeting with fathers of kids who were killed earlier that day, he gave an impassioned speech standing up for gun control and pleading the crowd to continue being loud about it. Songs like Long Road and Come Back reflect the mood of this theme.

Another theme that derives from Hartford shows is over one song that has connected the band to the city since 2010. What was once an OTOTO (one time, one time only) performance was now being brought back for a second time – the Van Halen rocker Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love. This song will set up a bit of a contentious discussion in this episode about the idea of them playing it. On one side you’ll hear praise for the band giving this city some special love for making it a theme, on the other side you’ll notice pushback for covering a band they have no business covering. And if you enjoy that conversation, you’ll probably love the segue into Got Some as well.

Gear Guru segments this week will focus on Lighting Bolt era songs Let The Records Play and Yellow Moon, as well as a little Jeff Ament talk focusing on his fretless bass from Alone.

As we say goodbye to reliving the 20th anniversary of the Riot Act tour, there are so many other Pearl Jam anniversaries that need to be celebrated this year. Believe it or not, it’s been a full decade since the 2013 Lightning Bolt tour, as well as the release of the record. In July of that year, the band revealed their plans for their 10th studio album release nearly days before the two big North American summer shows – Wrigley Field and London, Ontario. We all know how big of a deal that Wrigley show was. It was the first ballpark show of it’s kind,  heavy storms caused a two and a half hour delay leading to a show that didn’t end until 2 am, and Bugs was played. Because of the hype leading up to Wrigley, the London show that preceded it became a bit of an after thought. For those unfamiliar, we’ll tackle why this show deserves more love and appreciation from this fanbase that may have forgotten about it in the wake of Wrigley.

Like Wrigley, this is a show that was never released as an official bootleg. So most of the stories and moments that are relived come directly from the less than 10,000 fans who were there in attendance in this intimate venue. We’re lucky to be joined by two in this episode as Patron, Tim Fortescue, hops on to discuss why he requested this show, and filling in for John this week is Hallucinogenic Recipe co-host, Patrick Boegel, who also has great memories from this. A lot of the discussion here will come from this being the true kickoff to the new era, with a brand new rig, stage and lighting set up, setlist structure and new takes on old songs. It was the beginning of the nightly three song slow burn openers that came off as a massive surprise when the rarely opened with Present Tense kicked off this night. It was also the start of the slowburn encore in a way too, which was the most anticipated part of the set featuring some of the rarest songs in the catalog, IE: Parachutes and Man Of The Hour at this show.

We’ll also get to talking about the live debut of Mind Your Manners, a London Calling tease, amazing transitions between songs such as Modern Girl into Black, Dundas hookers on crack and experimental takes on two fan favorites – one that worked in Corduroy, and one that didn’t in Daughter. As a bonus, we’ll also ponder why Canadian hotels only have Garfield cartoons featured on their TVs.

Our Gear Guru segments this week focus on the brand new rig set-up for 2013, the defining sound of Mind Your Manners and Alone featuring Mike’s usage of a slide pick.

The theme of this show is the importance of family. This being a hometown show for both Ed and Matt, there are a lot of band member relatives taking in the performance – Ed’s mother and three brothers are in attendance, Matt’s mother, siblings and son Ray are all there, and Mike’s dad Roy is in attendance as well. As much as this is a family show for the band, it was a bonding moment for those who witnessed this on the rail. We invite our long-time friends Debra McMurtrey and Dukes Wooters onto the show to talk about how their friendship developed on this night and to discuss the special bonds that we share with each other through our connection to the band that makes it all so special. This is our first show in the next handful of weeks that’s going to zero in on some of the locations that Pearl Jam will stop at on the upcoming tour in May. This night was the last time they were in San Diego and the purpose of the show was to create a hometown party type atmosphere. They played a 34-song, 3 hour and 20 minute set on this night that’s memorable for a lot of reasons. Not just because we get to see Ed’s mother Karen take down a bottle of wine in the same way her son is known to do, but this set was filled with so many audibles and surprises that would make for special moments in any Pearl Jam show. Some of those surprises include Tremor Christ, Army Reserve, Speed Of Sound, In My Tree and the live debut of Sleeping By Myself. We’ll get into all that and more good stuff from Deb and Dukes, including a breakdown of Ray Cameron’s lackluster Rockin’ In The Free World performance.

Not Boston, but Woostah! This episode hits up an early show from the Lightning Bolt tour in which the band was playing their first of two nights in the Massachusetts town. Most Boston shows are going to give you something memorable like a special crowd or a deep dive into the back catalog. This show has all of those things. It’s a great crowd, and Fatal is played for the first time in years. But with the hosts not having attended this one in person, it is a bit of a struggle to grab onto an overall narrative for this 32-song set. Is it the brand new album songs that the band continues to adjust to on the live stage? Is it the 20-song main set that lasts about a dollar short of 2 hours? Is it Ed being so drunk that he forgets how to spell L-O-I-T-E-R-I-N-G in Crazy Mary? Those are all nice talking points, but when you put everything together, what kind of show are you looking at in hindsight? Don’t let that detract you from what this episode has to offer, because although we struggle with pieces of it, we ultimately enjoy this one. So listen in for discussion on great versions of Crazy Mary, Yellow Moon, Lightning Bolt, Unthought Known, Corduroy and Sonic Reducer.

We’re back yet again at the Key Arena to continue our year long Seattle Hometown series. This show in 2013 was big. It was the tour closer for a tour that reinvigorated a lot of energy back into setlists bringing back songs that they hadn’t played in years and changing up format in order to fulfil longer shows. Since this was the closer in Seattle, they knew that they were going to have to bring their a-game arsenal. A whopping 36 songs were played making it an instantly memorable evening. A few talking points during this show include an appreciation for Pendulum as the consistent opening track for this tour as well as an appreciation for the 3-song slowburn startup that frequented setlists this year. We’ll dig into how 2013 was a big year for rarities and at this show they brought out one of the rarest of the rare. Let Me Sleep was played once back in 1994 at a Bridge School show, it took them 613 shows before playing it again on this night. Also special from this show is a trio of songs from the Singles soundtrack played in a row for the only time. With 36 songs, it has a been stage atmosphere and while a podcast may not do the visuals justice, the lasting images of Ed and Mike dueling on Better Man and Ed being lifted up on one of the orbs are the big points to remember from this show. Thanks to our Patron, Drew Vipond, for making the request!