Thanks to some recently surfaced audio and video recordings, we’re pleased add three setlists from over 20 years ago to the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology! Setlists, notes and Video are below.

November 29, 1991: Cincinnati Gardens, Cincinnati, OH

set: Release, Even Flow, Why Go Home, Alive, Jeremy, Once, Porch
Notes: From the start, Ed addresses the high amount of security yet there are floor seats in place: “Good evening, hey you guys … hey hey, look, … everybody’s wearing blue (security). OK guys get ready, the pit’s gonna get started any minute. (sarcasm) We’re just gonna play something slow so everybody’s who’s outside still drinking beer won’t miss too much.” leading to “Release”.
[ Continue reading 1991 show notes ]
Thanks to Richard Jeansson, Carl Sylvester, Bill Graham

September 5, 1992: Fort Bend County Fairgrounds, Houston, TX

set: Oceans, Why Go, Deep, Jeremy, Even Flow, Alive, Porch, Rockin’ in the Free World
Notes: Setlist may be incomplete. The band starts a few bars (full band) of Soundgarden’s “Jesus Christ Pose” (instrumental) after “Oceans”. “We made it! We will make it! Now that we’re here, Why go home?”. Ed talked to the crowd, saying “I’ve been thinking about you guys a lot. Ever since that fuckin’ Republican Convention, I’m really worried about y’all” During “Even Flow”, fans in the pit fall down and Ed stops the band to help out, “I’m sorry you’ll just have to wait there’s people (down) … and people are more important than music any fuckin’ day”, right back into the second chorus of “Even Flow” without barely missing a beat. Doug Pinnick of King’s X, Chris Cornell and Ministry’s Al Jourgensen help out on “Rockin’ in the Free World”
[ Continue reading 1992 show notes ]
Thanks to Christopher Sims, Jeffrey Lane Jr, PJVideoGuy

Enjoy some videos from Houston ’92!

“Why Go”

“Jeremy”

“Deep”

“Even Flow”

September 11, 1992: Irvine Meadows, Irvine, CA

set: Why Go, Deep, Jeremy, Sonic Reducer, Even Flow, Improv (Hard to Imagine riffs), Alive, Porch/(So What)/(Tearing)
Notes: The finale of the Lollapalooza tour is a three-night stand at Irvine Meadows in Irvine, CA. Ed is in a good mode and addresses the crowd playfully: “All right, this is it … this is fuckin’ it. We’ve been doing this shit for two months. These are some of the greatest friends that I’ll have and this is it, this is the end of this shit. Let’s just fuckin’ rock out!” and the band launches into “Why Go”. Before “Deep” Ed mentions “Sure is good to be in front of real people, my voice is kinda hurting and the reason why I mention it and the reason why I’m really mad about it is we’ve been doing TV shows (MTV Video Music Awards and “Singles” premier party) and all that kinda shit and I could give a fuck for all of them. (crowd cheers) I couldn’t wait to get back – I don’t think any of us could – and play for real people, I hope (you’re) real people.” During the breakdown in “Deep”, Ed sings an improv “I wanna live in the pit / I wanna live in the pit / I wanna die in the pit / You don’t need to bury me, let me trample in my own ecstasy, my own ecstasy”. During “Deep”, Ed sings the 2nd verse instead of the bridge by mistake, but it fits right in and they end with the final chorus. Before “Sonic Reducer”, Ed says “You probably didn’t know this, but Nirvana wanted to play a different song instead of what they had to play on the MTV awards (they played ‘Lithium’), they wanted to play two new songs even, which I think would be the greatest thing that any Nirvana fan or music fan would have liked to hear, and we wanted to play something different too. We wanted to play a song called ‘Sonic Reducer’ instead of ‘Jeremy’. It’s an an old punk song by the Dead Boys. The reason we wanted to play is I think ‘Jeremy’ would have liked that song. This is it …” Commenting on the seats in the pit, Ed says “By doing whatever we want up here, we’re trying to make up for the fact that it doesn’t look like you can do anything out there. Don’t worry, I’ll try to arrange it for tomorrow (that) we won’t have security, I’ll take care of it. (slowly an jokingly to security) I’m just kidding.” Ed improvs during “Even Flow”: “I’ve tried so hard to be someone / You don’t all get chances to be anyone / You all get chances, but only one”. The band jams over “Hard to Imagine” riffs and Ed sings “What can you do, after a certain point / nothing seems to matter / What can you do / someone told me, someone told me yesterday / ‘Today is once in a lifetime’ / Somebody told me, whispered in my ear / They held my hand / So I had to be here / They said ‘Today, today, today is once in a lifetime’.” Before “Porch”, Ed talks to the Irvine crowd “This is one of my favorite t-shirts. Last time I wore it was on Mother’s Day in San Diego at Iguana’s or in Tijuana. And then of course the back says ‘No Bush 92′. This is the coolest thing, I have a think about favorite shirts, this is my Sweathogs t-shirt from 7th grade. If I jump in the crowd, don’t tear it off, ok?” “Porch” includes tags by Ministry (“So What”) and Rollins Band (“Tearing”)
[ Continue reading 1992 show notes ]
Thanks to Richard Jeansson, Carl Sylvester, Bill Graham

Ten years ago today, we asked the question: “Does the world need another Pearl Jam website?“. In 2003, the internet was full of Pearl Jam fan sites and it was a fun time to be a fan. But even then, our answer to the question was a “unanimous ‘yes’”.

We’re grateful to you – our readers, followers and likers – and Pearl Jam for your support over the last ten years. We sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed reading our articles as much as we’ve enjoyed writing them.

Amazingly, we’ve only seen the release of two Pearl Jam albums (S/T and Backspacer) since we’ve started, but we’ve relished in the releases that satisfied our fix for history, including Lost Dogs, Rearviewmirror, endless live Bootlegs, the legacy releases of Ten, Vs., and Vitalogy, and of course Cameron Crowe’s “Pearl Jam Twenty”.

We look forward to what Pearl Jam has in store for us in 2013, and we hope you’ll continue to enjoy “our Pearl Jam playground”. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Kathy Davis
Jessica Letkemann
John Reynolds

Pearl Jam’s “tour” of South America is almost as short as this post! Not much to say about Pearl Jam in Argentina – setlists full of 2+ decades of hits, and fantastic crowds.

Here’s some footage (and we’ll try to add more as it comes in)

Release -> Even Flow from the internet feed

Daughter -> It’s OK (Esta Bien) fan footage

Wishlist

I Believe in Miracles

Alive

Setlist

04/03/13: Pepsi Music Festival, Costanera Sur, Buenos Aires, Argentina
main set: Release, Even Flow, Lukin, Corduroy, In Hiding, Save You, Deep, Jeremy, Wishlist, Hail, Hail, Given To Fly, I Got Id, Daughter/(It’s OK), Got Some, Better Man/(Save It For Later), Elderly Woman…, Rearviewmirror
first encore: Do The Evolution, Animal, Just Breathe, Black, I Believe in Miracles, Alive, Rockin’ in the Free World, Yellow Ledbetter

It’s not every day that a founding member of Pearl Jam turns 50 years old. In fact, today (March 10), which is Jeff Ament’s birthday, is the first day that a founding member of Pearl Jam has hit the big 5-0. In the last year alone, the prolific bassist has toured with Pearl Jam, toured with RNDM, and released two albums. Every interview he does gives the sense he’s constantly creating. What this big birthday calls for is a celebration of Jeff’s musical creativity, in the usual stat-heavy, graph-laden TwoFeetThick style. How many bands has he been in? How many songs has he written? How many shows has he played? Let’s dive in.

Jeff Ament, born March 10, 1963 in Havre, Montana, has been in bands for the last 32 years. Over those 32 years, he’s been in a total of 10 bands (alphabetical order): Deranged Diction, Green River, Luv Co, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam, RNDM, Temple of the Dog, Three Fish, Tres Mts., War Babies.

Needless to say, he’s been in music for most of his life.
64: % of Jeff Ament’s Life He’s Been In Bands
57: % of Jeff’s Life He’s Been in a Band with Stone Gossard
45: % of Jeff’s Life He’s Been in Pearl Jam

Stone (Green River, Temple of the Dog, Mother Love Bone, Pearl Jam) isn’t the only reoccurring bandmate Jeff’s had, however. Richard Stuverud (War Babies Three Fish, Tres. Mts, RNDM) and Bruce Fairweather (Deranged Diction, Green River, Mother Love Bone) also repeated.

Over the course of those 32 years, Jeff has played a total of 1073 known public concerts (not including the 5-10% of pre-Pearl Jam shows probably still undocumented). For the purposes of this tally, a show had to be played for the public, and consist of at least 5 songs, to be counted. Therefore, many Pearl Jam instore and TV appearances were not included. A look at the pie chart here (with Pearl Jam in bright pink), shows that it’s no mystery that Pearl Jam represents by far the largest share of shows Jeff has played in his life (almost 82%).

But live performance is only part of the picture. Songwriting has been a cornerstone of Jeff’s musical life as well throughout the 10 bands he’s been in. Jeff has written the music for 77.57 publicly released songs, from his earliest days in Deranged Diction to the present moment with Pearl Jam and RNDM. How was that figured? Co-written songs were split by fraction (eg. if Jeff and Stone and Mike are credited for a certain song’s music, that was included as .33 by Jeff). Looking at songs’ music Jeff wrote by band, it’s clear that most of his songwriting has been for Pearl Jam (nearly 30 songs), with his solo work a fairly close second at 21 songs.

Narrowing the songwriting focus to Pearl Jam, Jeff’s contribution to the band’s catalog (without which we wouldn’t have “Jeremy,” “Nothing As It Seems” or “Lowlight” to name just three) have meant he’s written between 9 and 33.56% of each Pearl Jam album’s music (and 15.67% of non-album studio originals).

Jeff Ament’s songwriting for Pearl Jam isn’t limited to just the music, he has also delved into writing Pearl Jam lyrics…

18.33: % of Pearl Jam Studio Music Written by Jeff Ament
4.3: % of Pearl Jam Studio Lyrics Written by Jeff Ament
22.4: % of Pearl Jam Studio Lyrics NOT Written by Eddie Vedder That Were Written by Jeff Ament
Pearl Jam Songs with Lyrics By Jeff Ament: Pilate, Lowlight, Gods’ Dice, Nothing As It Seems, Help Help, Other Side, Sweet Lew

Non-music jobs Jeff’s Had: altar boy, zine editor, farm hand, weed killer, barista.

Jeff’s gigs acting and doing graphic design have been related to bands, so they aren’t listed separately. But for the record…

5: Number of Lines Jeff Had in the 1992 movie “Singles”
“While we’re young, Cliff”
“We can’t start off with that”
“Hey check this out, man, a review of our record”
“‘Once again, when the shirtless Cliff Poncier starts to sing…’”
“‘Other than that, he was ably backed by Stone and Jeff and drummer Eddie Vedder.’ I mean, that’s good. That’s a good review.”
(and fun fact, the Citizen Dick flyer shown being stapled up in the movie is for a March 10 show)

And while we’re being sort of silly, a word about the hats. After a brief time when he was in Green River, just about every single official band publicity photo Jeff was in from 1988-2002 found him wearing some kind of headcovering. Little wonder, in the ’90s, the Jeff hat thing was noted enough it even made it into some band’s song (a novelty song called “Pearl Jam Bought My Hair” by a little known group called Bongo Fury). Since 2002, it’s been a toss up for Jeff — hat-wearing or hatless. Feel a graphic coming on? Here it is…

Hats, hatless, goofing in “Singles,” and making coffee in Seatle aside, what it all comes down to for Jeff all these years is music…

10: Total Bands
77.57: Total Songs Written (Music), All Bands
29.52: Total Pearl Jam Songs Written (Music)
7: Total Pearl Jam Song Lyrics Written
1: Total Pearl Jam Songs Sung (“Sweet Lew”)

And if Jeff Ament was able to accomplish all of this in the past 50 years, here’s a toast to what is sure to be lots of music of the decades to come. Happy birthday, Jeff.

A deep dive into Pearl Jam’s 1998 album, “Yield,” which was released 15 years ago today.
“Emerge Empowered.” – “Yield” liner notes for the song “In Hiding.”

Fifteen years ago today (Feb. 3), Pearl Jam released “Yield,” its last album of the ’90s — the decade that gave birth to the band and its fame. But the album, many fans’ favorite to this day, signaled a shift in Pearl Jam’s sound and its outlook. The young acclaimed group were now a palpably veteran entity, survivors of a glaring spotlight and a tenacious but ultimately impossible ticketing fight, but now rocking with a ferocious realistic optimism new to their music.

You need Spotify, which is free, to hear the song embeds here. If you don’t want to, just break out the album yourself.

In 1998, to hear Eddie Vedder sing “we’re faithfull, we all believe in it” — and take that “it” to mean what you want — was a surprise and a pleasure. From the protagonist of “Given To Fly,” who suffers being stabbed by faceless men but who “still stands” and “still gives his love” to the “I” in “No Way” giving out “a token of my openness,” the signs of this upward shift were all over the album, far easier to spot than the “Yield” road signs “Carpenter Newton” (alias Stone Gossard) had hidden throughout the liner notes. Sure in “No Way,” Stone wrote “I’ll stop trying to make a difference,” but he told the Philadelphia Inquirer at the time, “The chorus ended up saying maybe you, maybe we all need to just live life and quit trying to prove something. For me, the funnest part is the fact that Eddie’s singing the line about not making a difference.” To which Eddie said, “The way I can sing it is changing his idea slightly, by saying ‘I’ll stop trying — no way.’”

The album’s title itself was another possible clue to the band’s mindset – one of those perfectly Pearl Jam-esque triple-meanings where the many dictionary definitions of “Yield” include “to surrender to something, to grant or concede as due;” “to give way to something superior”  and “the amount produced;” “to give in return;” “to give forth by cultivation (eg. the mature crop a farmer reaps is his yield). But also, a yield is “the energy released in an explosion.” Hence you have a 14 song discourse between five musicians, the public, and the universe that is all at once a yield in all senses of the word. It’s a nod to yielding as in making way. It’s yielding in the spiritual/meta-societal sense mentioned — there are angels and “love that is saved” and the ideas of belief and faith threaded throughout as are plenty of ideas about human society (“I don’t mind touching on spirituality in the songs” Eddie told NME about “Yield” in 1998). It’s also a yield in its sense of a crop of creativity coming to fruition, and a yield in its combustive sense (listen to “Do The Evolution” live and tell me that doesn’t sound like an explosion).

Of course the album cover afforded yet another layer of meaning to the word “Yield.” Encasing the album was Jeff Ament’s photograph of a barren two-lane Montana road in the middle of nowhere with a “Yield” sign planted on the shoulder. The catch is, there’s nothing there to yield to. No other roads join the path. Does that mean yield to yourself? Does it point at one of the more productive meanings of the word? Take your pick. Like the band itself, the image works well because it poses questions, it doesn’t answer them.

Going back to this notion of realistic optimism and the idea of posing questions but not answering them, “Yield” is not merely a pair of rose-colored glasses. That would have rung false. “Realistic” is the key word. There is still darkness here, there is still distress here; “Do The Evolution” closes with “2010 watch it go to fire” and the Jeff’s cryptic “Pilate” (titled after a reviled Biblical figure, look it up) is full of self-depreciating lines like “one’s a crowd” and “stunned by my own reflection. . . not unlike a friend that politely drags you down.” But where uglier truths are addressed, often also is the idea that something should be done, something can be done. “You’ve been taught, whipped into shape / now they’ve got you in line,” in Vedder’s “Brain of J,” but “the whole world will be different soon / the whole world will be relieved.” In “Wishlist,” EV sings “I wish I was as fortunate, as fortunate as me.” In Ament’s “Low Light,” “I’ll find my way from wrong.” And “Given To Fly,” with Mike McCready’s soaring, Led Zeppelin-esque music and Ed’s words, is all about overcoming. Vedder told the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1998, “I really love singing the part at the end, which is about rising above anybody’s comments about what you do and still giving your love away. You know — not becoming bitter and reclusive, not condemning the whole world because of the actions of a few.”

Back in 1998 when I first heard it, “In Hiding” — Eddie’s tale of a solitary multi-day retreat into himself in a bid for enlightenment — struck me as having the lyric that most clearly described where Pearl Jam was at that time. “No longer overwhelmed, and it seems so simple now. / It’s funny when things change so much, it’s all state of mind.” Suddenly the band that put allusions to the myth of Sisyphus (who pushes the rock up the hill only to have it roll back down in an endless cycle) in the “Vitalogy” liner notes, the band that reeled from the death of Kurt Cobain, and the band whose glaring fame meant EV had stalkers and that when he’d “walk into the supermarket, people stare like I’m a dog” (“Lukin”), was now the band that issued forth this 14-song rocker that was plenty critical about the world but not unhappy and not without hope. “Brain of J” had started life live in 1995 with the down line “the whole world was different then,” and now in 1998, it had the up “the whole world will be different soon.” — a looking backward changed to a looking forward and a potential (though not a promise) for good.

The 47-date U.S. “Yield” tour that summer put that feeling on the road. Pearl Jam’s most extensive trek in five years — the non-Ticketmaster years — featured all these songs (and the rest of band’s already large catalog) fine-tuned into their prime form, with drummer Matt Cameron propelling it all for the first time.

But “In Hiding” also struck me as an interesting statement of “state of mind” then because of what Eddie himself had said six years before, as Pearl Jam was first rocketing to ubiquity. In 1992, Vedder had told U.K. publication Melody Maker, “I’m still trying to get in touch with myself. I’ve held my breath and swum as deep as I could down into myself and then had to come up for air or the pressure got too intense. My head felt like it was imploding. But I know I can go deeper. It’s just a matter of holding my breath longer. I want to hit the bottom of myself before I go hang out with a million people.” In 1998, here he was, with millions of people certainly listening, singing “I swallowed my breath and went deep / I was climbing, I was diving / I surfaced and all of my being was enlightened.”  The liner notes for the song echoed the positive result of this soul-searching, reading, in part, “emerge empowered.”

There’s plenty more to say, about the influence the band said that Daniel Quinn’s book “Ishmael” (a meta-societal treatise about human history) had on the album’s themes, about how “Yield” was drummer Jack Irons’ last album with Pearl Jam and how it was Matt Cameron’s first tour with them, about how this last pre-millennial album asked the big questions. “Let’s say hypothetically, the title does mean something,” Eddie told the New York Times in February, 1998. “You can fight so much, and then you have to think, ‘What are the real battles?’ ‘What’s really important?’”

But fifteen years later, what really matters about “Yield,” is that it, to borrow a phrase, “still stands.” The songs live, not as ’90s nostalgia, but as powerful — particularly when Ed, Jeff, Stone, Mike and Matt play them in concert — as the first time you hit “play” and heard that shout of “1,2,3,4!” at the start of “Brain of J.”

The TFT eyewitness account of Jeff Ament & his RNDM cohorts rocking NYC 3X this November.

It was pretty clear to me from one listen to lead single “Modern Times” back in September that Jeff Ament’s mind meld with NYC-by-way-of-Ohio singer/songwriter Joseph Arthur, gestating since ’99 and previewed last year at PJ20, had come to full fruition with RNDM. The album, “Acts,” proved to be full of engaging rock and roll, with a good groove and no fear of an odd time signature. But it turned out that — over the course of three New York City gigs in the wake of Hurricane Sandy — the RNDM live experience was the best part of the collaboration. Musical chemistry, doused in orange spray-paint, dosed with inspirations from the Clash and Bowie to U2 and of the trio’s own history, covered with exclamation points and Roy Lichtenstein-esque art-direction, three guys in silly/menacing ski-masks and matching orange track pants, happily locked in to a beat that makes you move… this was the crux of RNDM in concert.

Jeff Ament in RNDM shirt and on RNDM bass, live at Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY. Nov. 2, 2012.

The momentary dissonance of seeing a member of Pearl Jam in a small club aside, the first New York RNDM show — on Nov. 2 — was already going to be odd because it was only two days after the hurricane hit the city. A cold Thursday night with few subways running and the few cabs racing through the Brooklyn streets with “off duty” lights on because of the gas shortage taking hold, just getting to the Music Hall of Williamsburg was an adventure. Because it was tough for everyone with tickets to attend, the smaller crowd meant an even more intimate show.

The night began with David Garza, a wry but emotional Austin, Texas singer/songwriter who holds the distinction of having been the first opening act at the Wetlands gig in NYC on June 11, 1999 when Joseph Arthur warmed up for Jeff Ament’s (and RNDM drummer Richard Stuverud’s) Three Fish.

RNDM’s Joe Arthur, Nov. 8, 2012 at NY’s Bowery Ballroom

All clad in the band’s signature orange, Jeff, Joseph and Richard took the stage with little ado and went straight into “Modern Times,” as more of a crowd began materializing somewhat out of nowhere.

Jeff and Richard have been playing together since before Pearl Jam existed (Jeff was briefly in War Babies with Rich in 1990, for the record), so it wasn’t strange to see how well they worked together right off the bat. But by the time RNDM had moved through a few more tunes — “Hollow Girl” being somehow particularly sticky — it was fun to watch what a natural frontman Joseph Arthur is for the pair. His lyrics are thoughtful and well-crafted and his voice and considerable guitar skills ride the Ament/Stuverud rhythm section with a light touch. Everything keeps moving, Ament singing backup and switching between neon orange and silver basses, Arthur mixing in his tunes (“The King of Cleveland”) and Jeff’s (“When The Fire Comes”). Seventeen songs — with some able cover action (Roky Erikson’s “I Think of Demons,” and the inspired mashup of The Clash’s “Magnificent Seven” and the Nina Simone/”Hair” soundtrack song “Ain’t Got No”) — and done. The second gig the three of them have ever played together and it all seemed effortless.

Talking about RNDM, Jeff has happily pointed to how lean the idea of the tour is — just a few people in a van or bus and hitting the road. And it shows in the aggressive schedule — Brooklyn Friday, D.C. Saturday, Philly Sunday, and back to New York on Monday (11/5) to be the musical guest on “Late Night With Jimmy Fallon.”

Jeff Ament and his 12-string Hamer bass playing with RNDM at NY’s Bowery Ballroom, Nov. 8, 2012.

You didn’t actually need to be in studio 6B at 30 Rockefeller Center to see how much fun Jeff and Joe and Richard had tearing through “Modern Times” in matching orange and black suits (and ski-masks!) and “Ain’t Got No”/”Magnificent Seven,” but I watching it live and in person the effect was magnified a little bit, speeding by too fast with Jeff closing out the first song ripping off his mask and holding up a “Vote Tester” sign as confetti fell, Fallon holding the RNDM vinyl open to the cameras. What wasn’t on TV so obviously was the little moment of Jeff standing there grooving to the Roots.

Say what you want about the many reasons that living in New York sucks, but it’s one of the few places something like getting three opportunities to check out RNDM happen. After detour to Boston on Wednesday, they returned to NYC for a Bowery Ballroom gig on Thursday night. With the lights back on in lower Manhattan and the subways almost back to normal, many more fans appeared much earlier at Bowery. Low key and open as ever, Jeff walked in the front door of the venue and through the crowd to get to the backstage area.

Garza and his guitar came out and did his thing, to a much more appreciative reception than Brooklyn. And then plenty of folks crowded the floor for RNDM, which as you can see from the pictures, now featured Joe and Jeff and Rich decked out in orange playing furiously in front of a gigantic RNDM logo banner.

The Bowery show flew by more rapidly, fueled a little bit by the larger crowd and the fact that the three of them were hitting a stride of having been on the road a little bit longer.

Opening this time with “What You Can’t Control,” Richard managed to be mostly an orange blur while Jeff cycled through basses (including a sweet acoustic uke bass I’m sure has some other proper name) and more backup vocals than I’ve ever seen him do with other projects. Joe, lives in the Big Apple, put both of RNDM’s NYC songs (“Williamsburg” and “Walking In New York”) back to back ahead of Jeff’s “When The Fire Comes” after the up-jump of “Look Out” (with Jeff on a giant 12-string bass) and “Throw You To The Pack.”

The four-song encore closed with the Psychedelic Furs’ “Into You Like A Train,” and now-standard finale “Ain’t Got No / Magnificent Seven” and the musical fun was over for the night. I’m a sucker for live music, I can admit that easily, but club shows — with subpar openers, too much standing around and craning your neck to see — are often not all that. With RNDM — and not just because it involved Jeff Ament — was in its element. Even with three shows in a row turning it basically into RNDM week for me, I left Bowery a little envious of all the folks about to catch RNDM live across the country. You are in for a treat.

Ah, November. The smattering of Pearl Jam’s 2012 tour dates are behind us; while collectively Pearl Jam may not be making new music together-yet, the Fabulous Five are keeping mighty, mighty busy. How about we catch up a bit?

First things first: Instant Classic Bootlegs! Pearl Jam has launched an Instant Classics bootleg series, which consists of recordings that are deemed “special” by the boys. First up, Missoula, Montana Sept 30, 2012. For a short time, this download is available for $4.99 at PearlJam.com. Get it while you can in the goods section here; through Nov. 13th proceeds of the sales go to benefit Poverello Center, an organization dedicated to health and wellness of underserved Montanans!

New Pearl Jam album? It’s going to be a while. In case you missed it, Travis Hay of Guerilla Candy posted a fantastic, lengthy 2-part interview with Jeff Ament. He talks about his new side gig with RNDM, status on Pearl Jam album goings-on (or lack thereof), and so much more. You can read that here: Part 1    Part 2.  Excerpt:

People want to know what’s going on with the next record and I think everybody has sort of talked about it, but it still really isn’t anything. We still don’t really know exactly when we will finish it so it’s hard to talk about it. It really could be anything at this point. Even though we have seven or eight songs recorded it’s still sort of a blank slate and that’s exciting. I don’t think there’s any doubt we’re going to make a record, but when that’s going to be, and when everybody is ready to do it, well that’s another story. And there’s no pressure. So if at any point the guys called up and said “Hey, we’re ready to do this,” I’d have no problem dropping everything because that’s my first love. I’m going to do whatever works for everyone else.

Jeff Ament gets RNDM 

 Along with Joseph Arthur and Jeff’s longtime percussive collaborator Richard Stuverud, Jeff’s side project RNDM are on the road in the month of November!  A few East Coast dates have come and gone; ticket links are at PearlJam.com, and here are the remaining dates:

November 7: Boston, MA – Paradise Rock Club

November 8: New York City, NY – The Bowery Ballroom

November 9: Montreal, QC – Corona

November 13: Chicago, IL – Lincoln Hall

November 14: Milwaukee, WI – Turner Hall Ballroom

November 15: Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue & 7th St. Entry

November 16: Lawrence, KS – The Bottleneck

November 18: Boulder, CO – The Fox

November 21: Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour

November 23: San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall

November 25:Portland, OR – The Doug Fir Lounge

November 26: Vancouver, BC – Biltmore Cabaret

November 27: Seattle, WA – The Showbox at the Market

To keep up with RNDM on tour, Joseph Arthur has wonderful tumblr blog packed with many RNDM goings-on – a beautifully written tour journal and marvelous photographs. Check it out!  RNDM have a great You Tube Channel as well, click onto that here.  Oh –  and our own TFT co-editor Jessica interviewed Jeff and Joseph at her other gig, Billboard.com. You can see that video interview here.

 Eddie On The Road:  Mr. Vedder’s make-up dates for his postponed Southern spring tour are well underway; (we reported on his pre-tour San Francisco Bay Area appearances at two benefits here). The remaining dates for Eddie’s 2012 tour are:

Nov. 6—Kiva Auditorium—Albuquerque, New Mexico
Nov. 7—Plaza Theater—El Paso, Texas
Nov. 9-11—Bass Concert Hall—Austin, Texas
Nov. 12-13—Jones Hall for the Performing Arts—Houston, Texas
Nov. 15—The Music Hall at Fair Park—Dallas, Texas
Nov. 16—Lila Cockrell Theatre—San Antonio, Texas
Nov. 18-19—Brady Theater—Tulsa, Oklahoma
Nov. 21—Orpheum Theater—Memphis, Tennessee
Nov. 24-25—Moran Theater—Jacksonville, Florida
Nov. 27-28—Bob Carr Performing Arts Center—Orlando, Florida
Nov. 30-Dec. 1—Broward Center for the Performing Arts—Ft. Lauderdale, Florida
Dec. 3-4—Ruth Eckerd Hall—Clearwater, Florida 

Pearl Jam’s keyboardist extraordinaire  Boom Gaspar is accompanying Eddie on the road and has been joining Ed on a few songs.

Matt Cameron: The Hardest Working Man In Rock! We Pearl Jam fans are mighty lucky to have the amazing & versatile drummer Matt Cameron occupying the chair. Even luckier still – new music from Matt’s pre-PJ gig, the legendary Soundgarden. The foursome’s new record “King Animal” hits the stores November 13th; the band have a handful of scheduled tour dates, and will appear on Late Show With David Letterman November 12th and Jimmy Kimmel Live November 26th.

Soundgarden tour dates:

Nov. 7   FZW – Dortmund, Germany

Nov. 9   O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire – London, UK

Nov. 13  Irving Plaza – NY, NY

Nov. 16  Phoenix Concert Theatre – Toronto, Canada

Nov 27  Fonda Theatre – Hollywood, CA

Mike w/Steve Gleason-GleasonGras 2012 photo from Nola.com

Mike & Stone Do Good Works:  In addition to Mike’s popular pro-Obamacare video “Life Is A Preexisting Condition” , on Sunday Nov. 4th he appeared at Gleason Gras, an event held in New Orleans to raise funds for Team Gleason, former New Orleans Saints safety Steve Gleason’s organization to raise funds/awareness for ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Back in September,  Stone Gossard’s other band Brad announced a nice chunk of European Dates scheduled in February 2013 . While he’s not specifically scheduled to attend, perhaps, as he did last year,  the conservation-minded guitarist will put in an appearance at the Pearl Jam-funded Arbor Day work party, taking place Saturday Nov. 10th at Crestwoods Park in Kirkland, WA. 500 trees will be planted, so if you’re in the area – lend a hand. Specific details available here.

Together, separately – Rock!

Photos of Ed’s ‘Heal EB’ performance Friday & more, the set list, and the EB auction with special PJ/EV items.


Eddie Vedder performs with Big Daddy Sunshine at Heal EB Event Oct 19, 2012.

Eddie Vedder made the most of his weekend in the Bay Area by doing an impromptu performance Friday (October 19) at “A Night of Discovery & Healing for EB,” a fundraiser held at San Jose, California’s Children’s Discovery Museum benefiting Heal EB. The charity raises awareness of a disease called Epidermolysis Bullosa.  Eddie  – who donated a number of cool items to an auction you can bid on here — and his wife Jill met with a number of kids with EB who attended (the boy in the photos is named Garrett) during the evening and attendees got to witness Ed joining event band Big Daddy Sunshine for three songs: covers of The Beatles’ “Come Together,” Tom Petty’s “Running Down a Dream,” and Neil Young’s “Rockin’ In The Free World.” You can check him out rocking with Big Daddy Sunshine at the event in the photo above.

Heal EB, which includes Jill on the board of directors, has an auction of some choice Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam signed items running through Friday morning. Auction goodies include front row tickets to an upcoming Eddie solo show, a signed EV ukulele, a signed EV songbook, two autographed Pearl Jam posters (Made in America and Montreal 2011) and more. You can check out the auction and bid using on eBay here. See The Heal EB Auction As many fans already know, Eddie was also in the Bay Area on Saturday (October 20) when he popped up at Neil Young’s Benefit to do a couple of songs (“Last Kiss” and “Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town”) and Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers tweeted cool photos with Ed and his daughter.

Eddie Vedder and friends at Heal EB Benefit, Oct. 19, 2012

Fellow Pearl Jam fans,

Many of you know me as a co-founder of TwoFeetThick.com with Jessica Letkemann and Kathy Davis. I’ve been a fan of Pearl Jam for over 20 years, and together with co-founder (and PJ fan) Martin Wulffeld we’ve launched a Pearl Jam-related project that I’m very excited about and can’t wait to tell you about here.

Our project is Setlisting.com - Setlists and Statistics for your favorite artists. If you’ve enjoyed the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology, think of Setlisting as a Concert Chronology with no bounds – setlists for all artists, not just Pearl Jam.

With Setlisting, you can easily add a setlist for a concert you attend (or have attended) and say “I WENT!” thus keeping track of your personal concert history. We’re working hard on adding a ton of interesting and fun statistics for artists, songs, concerts and especially for your personal concert history. If you have any suggestions in that area feel free to give us feedback.

We launched on August 1, 2012 with ZERO setlists! We’ve planted a seed and we’re watching the number of setlists grow.

For you – the Pearl Jam fan – we’ve personally entered hundreds and hundreds of Pearl Jam concerts, with help from many of my supportive friends. All of Pearl Jam’s known concerts are in Setlisting, but many don’t have setlists. Try updating some! We’ve made it very easy to update setlists.

[ See over 850+ Pearl Jam shows on Setlisting HERE ]

If you like the site, you can click “I WENT” for the shows you attended. Let your friends know about Setlisting by sharing past and future setlists on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus. If you don’t like the site we would value your honest feedback!

Do you follow other bands as actively as Pearl Jam? You can add setlists for those artists too! This is a great opportunity for you to actively maintain setlists for other artists, and help build a network of setlist-crazy fans.

I fell in love with the Concert Chronology the first time I saw it in 1996. I was honored to assume management of it on TwoFeetThick.com in 2005. It was around this time that I had the idea for a “Concert Chronology beyond just Pearl Jam”. Many years later, I was finally able to build the site and launch with the help of my partner and fellow PJ fan Martin Moen Wulffeld, who built the cool AllOrNone.org fan site.

We’re coming up with new ideas for the site on a daily basis. I’d also love to hear your feedback on the site! In addition to jr@twofeetthick.com, you can also reach me at jr@setlisting.com, or post your reply here.

Thanks for your time. Now you can see a concert, then go Setlisting!

Thanks,

John Reynolds (“JR”)
Founder, Setlisting.com
Co-Founder, TwoFeetThick.com – Pearl Jam for the Impassioned Fan

We love our history, and it continually amazes us that we can get updates – and great updates! – to Pearl Jam concerts from more than 20 years ago. Aside from the 2012 shows, we haven’t had Concert Chronology updates for older shows in a long time. In the past few months, though, we’ve started from the beginning and have been fact-checking some things and found some changes, listed below.

Also check out the videos below the list that have been unearthed in recent months

• 10/22/1990 – Off Ramp, Seattle, WA
  Changed “Girl” to “Just a Girl” (courtesy of Richard Jeansson)
  
  
• 12/22/1990 – Moore Theater, Seattle, WA
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 01/10/1991 – Harpo’s, Victoria, BC
  Changed “Girl” to “Just a Girl”
  
  
• 02/26/1991 – The Vogue: Seattle, WA – TK
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 07/15/1991 – Club Babyhead, Providence, RI
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 10/01/1991 – The Cathouse: Los Angeles, CA
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 10/02/1991 – Troubadour: Los Angeles, CA
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 10/07/1991 – Mason Jar: Phoenix, AZ
  Added 2 songs from incomplete setlist  from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 10/14/1991 – Cat’s Cradle: Carrboro, NC
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 10/17/1991 – Duke Ellington Ballroom, Holmes Student Center, N. IL Univ.: DeKalb, IL
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 11/06/1991 – The Haunt: Ithaca, NY
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 11/11/1991 – Roseland Ballroom: New York City, NY
  Updated correct setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 11/16/1991 – Roseland Ballroom: New York City, NY
  Updated correct setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 11/20/1991 – Kalamazoo State Theatre: Kalamazoo, MI
  Corrected the venue, added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 11/23/1991 – State Theatre (Clubland): Detroit, MI
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 11/24/1991 – Convention Center: Indianapolis, IN
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 11/26/1991 – Braden Auditorium: IL State Univ., Normal, IL
  Added incomplete setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 12/14/1991 – Denver Coliseum: Denver, CO
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 12/28/1991 – Del Mar Pavilion: San Diego, CA
  Added setlist from pearljam.com tour history
  
  
• 08/24/1992 – The Edge: Orlando, FL (Lollapalooza)
  Removed from Concert Chronology. This Lollapalooza stop did not happen