Live On 4 Legs: Pearl Jam Podcast

Toga! Toga! We're heading to upstate New York to cover Pearl Jam's last show to date at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, aka SPAC. It's a widely popular venue, one in which jam bands such as Phish and Dave Matthews Band have frequented, and as Ed would mention in this show, it was an early Lollapalooza tour venue back in 1992 when they played alongside Soundgarden. Glad he kept the shirt. This...

In this episode, Randy and John go where this podcast has (almost) never gone before... to the 2007 tour! While we covered Vic Theater in this podcast's infancy, we've never done the full dive into what's sort of a forgotten year in Pearl Jam history. Outside of the Vic and the Lollapalooza Chicago show, there were only 12 shows played on a European run that included mostly festival dates. The sho...

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...

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the big one. After two weeks of hype, we have now reached the third night of the Mansfield Experiment. Anybody who was there remembers it clearly - getting to the venue early for Pearl Jam to hit the stage around 5:30, witnessing them in the daylight, wanting to stand and cheer while the band eases in with an acoustic pre-set. It is almost inarguable that this show is...

Continuing onward with our big summer series, this episode focuses on the second night of Pearl Jam's Mansfield Experiment. With the first night under their belt and the crowd coming into the show aware of the premise, the excitement was at an all-time high. While night 1 was a great introduction to the idea, this show's crowd is up for all of the surprises and answers when called upon for the big...

Ladies and gentlemen of the Pearl Jam universe, it's here! Since the beginning of the year, we've been teasing this 10-episode recap of the 20th anniversary of the 2003 Riot Act tour, featuring the ultimate finale - all three shows from the Mansfield Experiment! To anyone who has never heard of this before, The Experiment was the band's opportunity with three nights scheduled just outside Boston t...

Alpine Valley has been a staple of the Pearl Jam touring route going all the way back to Lollapalooza in 1992. In the seven instances in which they've played there, there's no lack of unforgettable shows and unforgettable moments. A few of the shows even have monikers that they go by such as PJ20, when they played there for their 20th anniversary, and the Ice Bowl in 2000 where they played a full...

When you think about some of the more memorable performances in the history of Pearl Jam, a lot of them have a key factor in common. They develop from spontaneous moments that happen within the song. Fan interactions especially can help turn a performance of a song played over 500 times into an unforgettable moment. One of the other spontaneous facets that happens at Bonner Springs in 2003 is how...

We're back to our 20th anniversary celebration of Pearl Jam's Riot Act tour! Due to upcoming events in September, we have selected to cover the Dallas show from 2003 to give all of you headed there a little bit of history on what's happened there in the past. This show is mostly known for being the first official time that Alive was used as an opener, and we'll spend a lot of time discussing this...

When you think of 2009, immediately the first thing that comes to everyone's minds is those four Philadelphia shows that closed down The Spectrum. But people may forget that this wasn't the only four-night stint that they had in one building during this tour year. The 6,000+ capacity Gibson Amphitheatre located in Universal Studios in Los Angeles also played host to four Pearl Jam shows. Not four...

Earlier this month, bluegrass cover band, Iron Horse, famed for their covers of bands such as Metallica, Guns 'N Roses, Nirvana and many more, released an album complete with 12 renditions of popular Pearl Jam songs. All four members - Tony (mandolin), Vance (guitar), Andy (banjo) and Ricky (bass) join us to chat about the making of the record. We'll ask them what went into the decision of selecti...

Let's head down to South America for this episode where the crowds show up in massive numbers and bring their powerful voices along with them. We have a special one here for you as we're joined by our 5th leg, the Gear Guru Javier Hervas, for the entire episode. As you may have heard in recent episodes, Javier is our expert musician who joins in for a few segments per show to discuss some of the t...

This episode, we rock Portland! May 17th is former drummer Dave Abbruzzese's birthday, so we decided to go back to the only show where he played with the band on this date from 1992. A lot of the conversation will be directed towards Dave and how well he was clicking with the band just less than a year since joining them. His bombastic, hard pounding style is in the forefront of this show, and we'...

For the second week in a row, we're diving back into 2022 to discuss one of Randy's favorite shows he's ever been to that happened in Camden. Originally slated for Baltimore during what was going to be the 2020 run, the band making a return to the Philadelphia area meant that there were no punches going to be pulled, this was destined to be a monster set. Seeing that the city has had rich and hist...

On the one-year anniversary of the 2022 tour's kickoff, we're taking a look back at the first makeup show for the postponed 2020 tour. It started in San Diego, CA, a place that has always been treated as a homecoming for Ed, who grew up there in his school-aged years. With family, friends and celebrities on hand to witness this event, the expectations and nerves were at an all-time high. But with...

After a week of big announcements in the Pearl Jam world, we're coming back this week with more of the Riot Act Tour! Why not?! We'll discuss a little bit of the upcoming September tour in the beginning of the episode, but if you want our full fledged analysis, please check out our reaction episode that came out earlier in the week. Pittsburgh is yet again on the docket for us, and the show from 2...

It's that time again! After a big come back year in 2022 with many highs and even a few lows, Pearl Jam has just announced their tour plans for 2023. It's a nine-date run in the midwest from north to south featuring shows in St. Paul, Chicago, Indianapolis, Dallas/Forth Worth and Austin. On this special episode we breakdown all of the tour dates and what people may expect night in and night out, t...

Continuing on our run of Riot Act shows, this week takes us to the home of the Fighting Illini in Champaign, IL. For this show being on a college campus and therefore not allowing the sale of alcohol, the crowd did an excellent job bringing in the same kind of energy that you'd see from their in-state big city counterpart in Chicago. There are a handful of interesting things from this one. Do The...

As is the theme for this year, we're back to celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Riot Act tour for the next few weeks looking into some of Pearl Jam's most notable shows from April of 2003. We're talking about a show from West Palm Beach in this episode, which may not stand out to you on paper, but it features significant moments that define some of the themes for this entire tour year. Three...

Most shows that go down as some of the greatest in Pearl Jam's history are usually remembered for having an excellent crowd feeding off their energy. There are some shows that may not get discussed as often due to a crowd not living up to expectations. Bristow, VA 2010 fits into that latter category. On a cold night in an outdoor amphitheater just outside of Washington DC, the band had a challenge...

We're covering a Vs./Vitalogy era show this week from 1994 where both albums were nearly splitting play time live, but that's not the story we'll have for you here. Murfreesboro is legendary thanks to the appearance of one of the great song-writers of all-time, Steve Cropper. As part of the backing band, Booker T and The MGs, Cropper has played for a number of world renowned stars such as Otis Red...

There are moments that happen on the Pearl Jam live stage where you understand that what's happening before you is a once in a lifetime moment. They've created a plethora of these moments in their 30+ years of touring, but that's what keeps the faithfull coming back. They come in all shapes and forms, but when a member of the crowd is invited on stage, you understand how big a deal it is. One of t...

Out of around 1,200 shows played within the lexicon of Pearl Jam, there are inevitably some that are going to fall between the cracks. Those shows are mostly considered to be outside of the USA, just because the majority of active fans happen to be American. But there are hundreds of Australian, South American and European shows that over time get forgotten about mainly due to being fresh in peopl...

The City Of Brotherly Love has been home to countless legendary Pearl Jam shows and moments throughout their history. As a matter of fact, the night after this show was the show in which they they played the album Ten in full. Which makes some people forget about night 1 from 2016 due to the magnitude of the Ten banner being raised. But what good are we if we can't give every great show a spotligh...

It feels like whenever a band embarks out on a 'world tour', you can't coin that phrase unless you make a pitstop in Japan. While Pearl Jam has never done a true official world tour, they've had the opportunity to visit Japan twice. The first time was in 1995, and then they went back for five shows in 2003. This episode focuses on the Sendai show from the Riot Act tour. These shows are always inte...