Live On 4 Legs: Pearl Jam Podcast

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of Pearl Jam's sophomore record, Vs., in this episode we're going back to where it all started. In the spring of 1993, the band set out to record the new record in the Northern California town of San Rafael. The process took two months to lay down all the tracks. At the end of the session, a surprise show was planned under the moniker of the David J. Gunn Ban...

After a long year and a half battle of the world in a lockdown due to Covid-19, concerts were starting to slowly trickle back in by the end of 2021. Pearl Jam had missed their big opportunity to showcase Gigaton on a promotional tour in 2020, so when the opportunity to play four festival shows arose, with careful consideration they finally decided to kick off the new era. Three of the four shows t...

One of the most special parts of a Pearl Jam show is when Ed and the band can recognize a story submitted by a local area fan and share it with the crowd. On the 2023 tour, we saw our fair share of those, ranging from requested songs to stories of heartbreak and loss. In what was one of the most memorable moments of the year, Ed received and read a poem from the poet laureate of Dallas about how i...

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 exa...

With the 2023 tour in our rearviewmirror, we're pushing forward back as this episode features a great show from Prague at the end of the Lightning Bolt tour run. Seeing as we are now officially finished with the Gigaton run, we thought it would be a good idea to take both of these tour years and see how they compared before embarking on a new era. It's interesting to look at side by side because a...

With a busy weekend covering the final three Pearl Jam shows of the 2023 tour, we've decided to make this week's episode a little bit on the shorter side so we could focus our attention on the Texas shows rather than spend nights heavily editing. So to do that, we had to go back to an era that had significantly smaller sets. Which is why we chose a show from the University of Kansas campus that to...

As the 2023 tour continues to move from north to south, we're gonna get you prepared for the Austin shows by covering the last non-festival show that was played in the Texas capital way back in 1995. This was a make-up show for the postponed date that stemmed from Ed's bout of food poisoning back at the Golden Gate Park show. This show in Austin had it's own fair share of controversies, including...

There are only about 20% of podcasts that make it past 14 episodes. 12% of all podcasts end after their first episode and another 6% don't make it past two. Which is why we are extremely proud to be here with you on the 5th anniversary of our podcast coming to life! As we started in 2018, it took a long time to develop a following and catch the ear of the Pearl Jam fan. While our resume with the s...

It's tour time! We've been hyping it up for the last few months, and this episode is the last before the 2023 tour kicks off! We'll begin the episode talking about the possibilities of what may happen and whether or not there are new songs tossed into the mix. For up to date tour instant reaction episodes, please direct to our Patreon where that content can be found - http://patreon.com/liveon4leg...

It's time for our third trip to the Steel City this year! After covering 2000 and 2003 in the spring, we're going to focus on the tour year that preceded those shows in 1998. Want to hear something kind of shocking? This was their first show in Pennsylvania since Lollapalooza 1992! With the 1994 and 1996 tours that traveled through the northeast, it's kind of insane that they never hit Pittsburgh...

We've done extensive coverage of the 2003 Riot Act tour celebrating the 20th anniversary this year. Now it's time to celebrate the anniversary of another major tour in Pearl Jam history - 1998! We kick off a 3-episode Yield tour stretch with an outdoor festival show that took place in Barrie, right outside of Toronto. With Cheap Trick as the supporting act on tour at this time, there are multiple...

We are less than a month away from seeing Pearl Jam take the stage for nine shows in September, and there's possibly no bigger stage than the one set for Ed's hometown of Chicago. As Wrigley Field has dominated the tour runs for the last ten years, the band is finally returning to the United Center for the first time since 2009, which is the show we'll be digging into in this episode. It was right...

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'...