Pearl Jam might be one of the most influential grunge bands of the ’90s, but the group took the opportunity at their recent hometown shows to perform tributes to some of their own heroes and musical icons.
As Rolling Stone reports, Pearl Jam recently hit up Seattle’s Safeco Field in the US state of Washington for a pair of long-awaited homecoming shows. Their first shows in the city in five years, the group knew that they had a duty to deliver a hugely special performance to their hometown crowd.
While their first of these shows on Wednesday night featured a number of covers, including the likes of The White Stripes’ ‘We’re Going to Be Friends’ and Neil Young’s ‘Rockin’ In The Free World’, it was the group’s second show on Friday night that attracted the most attention.
After kicking off their marathon 36-song set with a series of old favourites, the group jumped into a performance of Pink Floyd’s ‘Interstellar Overdrive’, before ducking into the Chris Cornell rarity, ‘Missing’, just a few tracks later.
After leaving the stage, Eddie Vedder returned to the stage for a solo cover of Eddie Vedder’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’, before being joined by the rest of the band for a rendition of Mother Love Bone’s ‘Crown Of Thorns’. Soon, Pearl Jam welcomed Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil to the stage for a huge performance of MC5’s ‘Kick Out The Jams’, giving music fans in grunge’s spiritual home a rather special experience once again.
As the set continued, Pearl Jam also dropped in a brief snippet of ABBA’s ‘Fernando’, as well as performances of Victoria Williams’ ‘Crazy Mary’, The Who’s ‘Baba O’Reilly’, Iggy and The Stooges’ ‘Search And Destroy’, and the Dead Boys’ ‘Sonic Reducer’, with the latter two featuring guest appearances from Kim Thayil, and Mudhoney’s Steve Turner and Mark Arm.
The group’s performance also contained a performance of their latest single, the Donald Trump-inspired ‘Can’t Deny Me’, which is set to appear on the group’s upcoming album.
While the band have noted that 2019 is looking good in regards to a release date, the majority of the record is still in the writing stages.
“We still need to record it; we haven’t really recorded anything. But [there are] a lot of ideas,” explained bassist Jeff Ament back in May.
“We’ve sort of been telling ourselves that we weren’t gonna put a ton of pressure on the situation,” Ament continued. “We really wanna make something great, and we wanna have the freedom to live with some of these ideas for a while and then maybe record them in a different way. We’re sort of exploring all sorts of different things right now. So I think it bodes well for whatever the next album is.”
Whatever the case, we’re looking forward to seeing the band back on Aussie soil, and who knows, maybe we might even see a few of these covers thrown in too?
Check out more of Pearl Jam’s live covers:
Pearl Jam @ Seattle, Washington, USA 10/08/2018 Setlist
‘Oceans’
‘Footsteps’
‘Nothingman’
‘Why Go’
‘Brain Of J.’
‘Interstellar Overdrive’ (Pink Floyd cover)
‘Corduroy’
‘Rats’
‘In Hiding’
‘Whipping’
‘Even Flow’
‘Missing’ (Chris Cornell cover)
‘Daughter’
‘Immortality’
‘I’m Open’
‘Unthought Known’
‘Can’t Deny Me’
‘Do The Evolution’
‘Lukin’
‘Porch’
Encore:
‘I Won’t Back Down’ (Tom Petty cover)
‘Thin Air’
‘All Or None’
‘Better Man’
‘Crown Of Thorns’ (Mother Love Bone cover)
‘Kick Out The Jams’ (MC5 cover) (with Kim Thayil)
‘Spin The Black Circle’
‘Rearviewmirror’
Encore 2:
‘Crazy Mary’ (Victoria Williams cover)
‘Jeremy’
‘Leash’
‘Search And Destroy’ (Iggy And The Stooges cover) (With Kim Thayil, Steve Turner, and Mark Arm)
‘Sonic Reducer’ (Dead Boys cover) (With Kim Thayil, Steve Turner, and Mark Arm)
‘Alive’
‘Baba O’Riley’ (The Who cover)
‘Yellow Ledbetter’
