Thursday, December 29, 2016

Top Ten Pearl Jam Moments of 2016, #4 & #3

4. Greenville and Toronto



In 2015, Pearl Jam followed a recent trend among live acts in playing albums front-to-back in concert, but they only treated us to two albums.  This year, they stretched the trend a bit further with surprise performances of Vs. in Greenville, South Carolina on April 16th and Binaural in Toronto, Ontario on May 10th.  (Yes, OK, they also played Ten in Philadelphia, but we were treated to Ten front-to-back in Germany 1992.)

Pearl Jam always creates their setlists right before a show, so fans never know when to expect them, but there's a good bet we might hear Vitalogy or another album if they tour in 2017.

Here's what we've heard so far, and what we can expect in the future.


Ten: March 13, 1992 in Munich, Germany / April 29, 2016 in Philadelphia, PA
Vs.: April 16, 2016 in Greenville, SC
Vitalogy: ??
No Code: October 17, 2014 in Moline, IL
Yield: October 20, 2014 in Milwaukee, WI
Binaural: May 10, 2016 in Toronto, ONT
Riot Act: ??
Pearl Jam: September 19, 2006 in Torino, Italy
Backspacer: ??
Lightning Bolt: ??


3. Temple of the Dog



In May, Chris Cornell announced that he had obtained the master tapes from Temple of the Dog from the album's producer Rick Parashar's brother, Rajan, forcing fans to speculate that big things were on the way.  Fans were right.
On July 20th, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden announced that we would be getting, not only, a massive reissue of Temple of the Dog, but a tour to boot!  The reissues came in the form of vinyl or CD or a Super Deluxe Boxed Set including dozens of never-before released tracks, demos, and live performances on HD audio and DVD.

The tour, the first ever for Temple of the Dog, hit five cities over eight nights in November: Philadelphia, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Seattle.  The bad played Temple of the Dog songs as well as works by Mother Love Bone, Mad Season, Chris Cornell's solo work, and a solid collection of other covers.

Murmurs from band members expressed interest in doing more work as Temple of the Dog, but that's hardly the first time we've heard that.  Hope springs eternal.