 |
| Baltimore, September 12, 2024 // Credit: Chris Barr |
I was fortunate enough to make it to three shows this 2024 tour – my first three show run since possibly as far back as 2008. I downloaded the Pearl Jam Stat Tracker at the start of the tour, and tragically I cannot reproduce my entire history. Those 2009-2013 shows run together, and I did not save every stub or get a poster at every show. So, while the app tells me these are shows twenty-four to twenty-six, it feels like it should be closer to thirty.
I saw
MSG Night 1, Philly Night 2, and Baltimore. All three were fan club tickets. Crappy upper deck Stone side seats for MSG and Philly. Great Stone side floor seats for Baltimore. But honestly the seats do not matter. At this point in my life, I am simply happy to be in the building and be there for the music. To take communion with the band.
My original plan was to review each show separately, but honestly, they all kind of blurred together in the best way possible. The band was on fire every night. The crowds were electric. You could not only feel the energy – the reciprocity was tangible. Pearl Jam was simultaneously five guys (or six or seven if you want to count Boom and Josh) and the 15,000 people in the arena. They have been at this for thirty years, but they still come out every night and play with the emotional intensity of a band grateful for the opportunity. The chemistry is otherworldly. The responsiveness supernatural. This was probably the best block of shows I have been to since my 03 run of Uniondale and MSG nights 1 and 2. It was the sound of a band that refuses to leave its prime – and wherever there may have been a loss in power it was easily offset by craft and connectivity – with the band knowing how to generate communal intimacy, and a fan base who understands that they are not just there to listen. They are there to participate. As long as they provide fuel the music will keep burning.
I occasionally read fan reviews on Facebook and elsewhere, and it seems like the self-entitled fan reviews get the most attention. The ones written by someone who goes to their shows with a spreadsheet and judges their success by the boxes they can tick off. Fandom as curation. But I can say, definitively, that the crowds in the building emphatically disagreed with your disappointment. I have my favorite albums. I have my favorite live songs. I have my own wish list. But what was made abundantly clear is that, in the moment, the song I want to hear the most is whatever they are playing. I do not necessarily feel that way watching set lists unfold at home or listening to a bootleg of a show I wasn’t at. But when I am there, I don’t want to think. I want to feel. And after thirty years at this, the band knows the science of the heart, and how to calibrate a setlist to create a deep and visceral emotional response of everyone in attendance. And trying to draw distinctions between the shows feels arbitrary, or academic in the most pedantic way possible.
But the variety was there – the delicate balance between the songs that destroy a crowd and the unexpected moment that keeps you on your toes was fully present. The alchemy between what you want and what you need in full effect. Out of the seventy-six songs I got to hear over three nights, fifty-one were unique. 67% of the total setlist. That is an astounding ratio. Only six songs were played across three nights. Only sixteen repeated at all. And every repeated song elicited a huge response from the crowd, and was the only time thousands of people in the room will get to hear it this tour. So for anyone complaining about cookie cutter setlists:
A: Cookies are still delicious.
B: Your math does not add up.
 |
| Baltimore, September 12, 2024 // Credit: Chris Barr |
|
What can I say about the shows themselves? It is easier to capture moments. But the band roared out of the gate every night. It took a few moments to settle into slow burn openers like Of the Girl, Pendulum, and Can’t Keep (a first for me) – these are moody, atmospheric moments that slowly envelop you on their records, or as part of a gradually building openers. But the band was almost too excited to wait for the songs to settle. They were eager to get to work.
But I also do not know that these crowds would have waited. Every song received an explosive reaction, and there were moments that rang of prophecy. MSG exploded singing along to “I cannot stop the thought of running in the dark” during Immortality. The roof blew off of Philly at “I just want to scream ‘hello’” and after a ten-year drought of not hearing Elderly Woman my eyes absolutely welled up. Not just for the emotion of that particular moment, but in awe of the shared vocabulary we have built with each other over decades of fandom – the lyrics a language unto themselves, the arena a campfire for the soul.
Mike was a man possessed all three nights. MSG saw him play half of the Even Flow solo behind his back. I am pretty sure he played it with teeth at Philly. He destroyed a guitar during Black at MSG and spent the end of the song trying to resurrect it – a séance as much as a solo. And during Baltimore Eddie repeated the “I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life…” outro, and no one in the crowd minded getting it twice. He sounded great throughout the run, and was always chatty, playful, poinginant, and real. The politics were present, but the continue to be focused more around building inclusive communtiy - inviting people in rather than pushing them out. At this point Pearl Jam's values are of surprise to no one, and I think Eddie recognizes that while he may be able to inspire (or at least remind) someone to participate in our democratic process, this is not an appropriate venue for the long, hard work of changing minds - and that leaving feeling good about your fellow human beings is itself a political act in an era where politics is too often defined by cruelty.
Songs like Love Boat Captain that do not excite me in theory felt elemental in the moment, and the band made something like Inside Job feel like the most important song in the world. In Baltimore they stopped on a dime during Alive to make sure someone in general admission was okay, and picked right back up again with a kind of zero to infinity explosion of energy that, if harnassed, could solve a lot of the world’s problems. Otherwise, the older songs are the older songs. There are some, like Dance of the Clairvoyants (a top ten song in their entire catalog for me) that the band is still trying to figure out how to reproduce – the rare song that is gradually morphing into an entirely different animal live since they cannot reproduce the layered vocals of the outro. There are others, like Jeremy that sound impossibly vibrant for a song that old, a joyful, shared exorcism of our collective demons. At MSG,Eddie shared a story of a young kid surviving bullying and personal tragedy and transformed Given to Fly into an anthem of defiance. Moments like Out of My Mind, Alone, Tremor Christ, and Satan’s Bed feel like being let in on a secret. A run of songs like Present Tense -> Given to Fly -> Corduroy was a reminder of how deeply embedded into my DNA this band’s music is, and how hearing them together feels like both an affirmation and validation of my life. That to be here in this moment, hearing these songs, having the reaction, means I must have done something right. And I was not the only one in Baltimore having that experience. This is real ‘lifetime achievement of your favorite band’ kind of shit – something that defies words and explanations, but no less tangible and real. Eddie has spoken repeatedly about how transformative the live experience of music can be. The feeling of solidarity, of finding your tribe, of not being alone in a world full of isolating structures. How vast and powerful you feel in those moments. That is what they set out to create at a show, and somehow they are as good at it as they ever were.
Perhaps what was most remarkable is how great the Dark Matter songs sounded. I love Backspacer and Lightning Bolt, but those songs did not necessarily translate live the way I wanted them to, or the band gave up on most of them a little too quickly (with a few exceptions like Unthought Known and Mind Your Manners). Gigaton songs sounded really good, but Gigaton never really had a proper tour – the 2022, and 2023 shows felt more interstitial – tours between records, rather than tours celebrating a record. But the Dark Matter songs were vibrant. They felt like they mattered. And they felt timeless, songs that I had been hearing my whole life, songs that felt quintessentially Pearl Jam, and they nestled seamlessly alongside the rest of the catalog. React/Respond may have been the biggest surprise for how hard hitting it was – the sly winking of the studio version replaced by something raw and far more powerful. But Wreckage is a great sing along. Dark Matter pulses exactly the way you want it to – one of the heaviest moments in each set. Upper Hand felt suitably epic. Running is genuinely fun and playful, Scared of Fear sturdy and thoughtful. Waiting for Stevie was the five-minute shot of catharsis I hoped it would be. In fact, my only two complaints about these shows are that I never got to hear Setting Sun, and that Stevie is not in every setlist. I will unapologetically own that entitlement.
I should also add that Glen Hansard is incredible, and at each show I saw a side of him I wasn't familair with, but need to be. I would love to see him and Eddie have a true full length collaberation together. Flag Day doesn't count.
In the end, I had the total experience I was looking for. Pre-show I got to finally meet so many of the people I interact with on message boards and Discord servers, the people who sustain my fandom in between shows and records. I truly believe Pearl Jam’s music is best experienced as part of a community, and being able to put names to screen names, and infuse internet personas with actual humanity strengthens and sustains those relationships. Every night was exactly the right mixture of surprising and familiar. And every member of the band brought the commitment that made them legends in this space. It turns out that every song, in the moment, is exactly the song I want to hear. That every song speaks to some part of who I am. And hearing them live, singing along with so many other fans, seeing how much these songs still mean to the band, revitalizes those parts of myself.
I am older than I was. Three shows in ten days takes a new toll on my body. The travel is demanding. This is not cheap, and I am grateful I was able to get to what I did. The planning can be a hassle. But for those two and a half hours, this band makes me feel immortal. And the next day the world feels just a little softer, and I fit into it just a little better. The experience has a price, but the feeling is priceless.
After thirty years, Pearl Jam is still the best band in the world. Not because they have something to prove, but because they do not, and insist on proving it anyway. Thank you for three more amazing nights.
p.s. Completely selfish plug and update – for everyone who
preordered our book
I Am No Guide: Pearl Jam Song by Song it will be released in the UK this month, and the worldwide (including the US) release should follow. We appreciate everyone’s patience. We asked the company to delay the release so we could include Dark Matter, and publishing logistics are more complicated than expected.
 |
| Brian Stipelman and Brandon Rector // Pre-show NYC, September 3, 2024 // Credit: Jeff Farris |
.jpg)
