Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden marked the 50th Pearl Jam show in New York City show dating back to 1991 when the upstart Seattle outfit played The Wetlands and CBGB after bursting onto the scene with Ten. With two-night stands at MSG in 1998, 2003, 2008, 2010, 2016, and now 2024 adding to its most recent Garden performance on 9/11/22, the momentous occasion was also the band’s 13th show at The World’s Most Famous Arena.
As everyone knows no party is complete without a proper guest list so, in addition to the 20,000+ ticketed guests, Pearl Jam invited Howard Stern, Steven Van Zandt, Andrew Watt, and Glen Hansard, all of whom added to the evening’s jubilation and made their mark in one way or another.
Offering up a variety of deep cuts, covers, and career-spanning material, Pearl Jam stayed true to form over the course of the two nights, delighting the Garden faithful with offerings from nine albums on each of the two nights. With the exception of Binaural (2000) and Gigaton (2022), every studio album was represented with at least one song as the band played 46 unique songs (52 total) over the course of the two-night stand.
Fans of Dark Matter almost completed a perfect set during the Garden run as Eddie Vedder, Mike McCready, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron, Boom Gaspar, and Josh Klinghoffer unsurprisingly gave heavy emphasis to their most recent release on its eponymous album tour, the band ripping through nine of Dark Matter’s eleven tracks.
On the heels of an extremely memorable first night that saw the tour debuts of “Imagine”, “Unthought Known”, and “Indifference”, the relative once-a-tour rarities “Satan’s Bed”, “Out Of My Mind”, and “Love Boat Captain”, and a superlatively memorable Mike McCready “Black” guitar solo, Pearl Jam was back at it less than 24 hours later, Vedder in the same Walter Payton jersey and fedora as the day before and McCready wearing a CBGB t-shirt in homage to the band’s earliest NYC memories.
Pearl Jam’s 50th got officially underway on Wednesday with “Garden”, presumably a nod to MSG, before a rocking “Corduroy” kicked the party into high gear. “Hail, Hail” followed as the first and only track from No Code (1998) before “Even Flow”, one of just six repeats from night one. Vedder briefly spoke for women’s rights before “Daughter” followed with an “Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2” tag in which Vedder changed the lyrics to reflect pro-choice, ”Hey, politicians, leave those eggs alone!”
Dark Matter featured heavily in the main set with its title track next preceding “React, Respond”, “Won’t Tell”, and “Wreckage” before a raucous “Not For You”. Riot Act favorite “I Am Mine” followed before the arena wide singalong of the longest title in the Pearl Jam catalog, “Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town”.
Vedder then pointed out that the next song was a request from a friend that, “I hate playing because I hate guns.” The back story goes as follows: Pearl Jam appeared on the Howard Stern Show in late April but refused their host’s requests to play “Glorified G”. Good things come to those who wait, however, with Stern on hand for the festivities as his wish was ultimately granted four months later in front of a capacity Garden crowd. “Do The Evolution” got the Garden floor shaking for the second consecutive night before Jeff Ament’s signature bass line kicked off an epic singalong of “Jeremy”.
The first of the evening’s friends to make their way to the stage was 2021 Grammy Award Winning Producer of the year Andrew Watt. Watt, who produced The Rolling Stones’ Hackney Diamonds, Justin Bieber, Dua Lipa, and Miley Cyrus in addition to Dark Matter, knows his way around a guitar as well as Pearl Jam’s latest release and absolutely owned the stage for a rocking take on the album’s hardest hitting song, “Waiting For Stevie”. Watt would stick around for a wild “Rearview Mirror” that closed the main set.
Earlier in the evening, Vedder mentioned that the band was a little nervous playing in front of Steven Van Zandt, of Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band and The Sopranos fame. Those nerves, however, did not deter Pearl Jam’s fearless frontman who returned from the encore break to tackle a solo electric version of Little Steven’s “I Am A Patriot” with a vocal display that only could have made the song’s artist blush with pride.
Vedder next dedicated “Just Breathe”, a song that got him through hard times, to a few fans experienciong some hardships of their own before inviting Glen Hansard to join him on acoustic guitar and backing vocals for Hansard’s original “Song Of Good Hope”. The cover portion of the show continued as the full band returned for John Lennon’s “Gimme Some Truth” before Dark Matter’s “Setting Sun” and a riotous take on the Dead Boys’ “Sonic Reducer”. Energy in the GA pit reached a fever pitch during “Leash” before the first notes of “Alive” were accompanied by the house lights.
In the penultimate slot was Neil Young‘s “Rockin’ In The Free World”, a song that not only brought the house down but felt right at home on Vedder’s politically charged setlist. All hands were on deck for this one including Little Steven who made his way to the stage to join the party for the first time alongside Watt, Hansard, and a few members of Hansard’s band. There was one guest, however, who took in Neil Young’s rally cry from the comfort of his own seat rather than on stage, but we only learned about that the following day thanks to this social media caption from Little Steven.
“Trying to talk Howard Stern into playing tambourine on Rockin’ In The Free World. But he pussied out! (Producer Andrew Watt and drummer Matt Cameron discussing the Setlist-Danny Clinch never misses anything). ” – SVZ
“Yellow Ledbetter” was the evening’s final call, one last chance for the PJ faithful to make up their own words and scream at the top of their lungs in company with Vedder’s garbled lyrics as McCready’s iconic solo put the finishing touches on yet another Pearl Jam Garden classic.
Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter tour continues Saturday and Monday at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, PA before moving to Baltimore, MD and Boston, MA. Find tickets and a full list of tour dates on the band’s website.
Pearl Jam — “Garden” — 9/4/24
[Video: Pit Perspectives: Live Music Videography]
Setlist: Pearl Jam | Madison Square Garden | New York, NY | 9/4/24
Set: Garden, Corduroy, Hail Hail, Even Flow, Daughter/Another Brick In The Wall pt 2 (Pink Floyd), Dark Matter, React, Respond, Won’t Tell, Not For You, Wreckage, I Am Mine, Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town, Glorified G, Do The Evolution, Jeremy, Waiting For Stevie [3], Rearviewmirror [3]
Encore: I Am A Patriot (Van Zandt) [4], Just Breathe, Song Of Good Hope [5], Gimme Some Truth (John Lennon Lennon), Setting Sun, Sonic Reducer (Dead Boys), Leash, Alive, Rockin’ In The Free World (Neil Young) [6], Yellow Ledbetter
[1] “Another Brick in the Wall Pt. 2” (Pink Floyd) tag
[2] “Modern Girl” (Sleater-Kinney) tag
[3] w/ Andrew Watt
[4] Ed solo electric guitar
[5] w/ Glen Hansard
[6] w/ Andrew Watt, Little Steven Van Zandt, Glen Hansard band members
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