Pearl Jam Concert Review: A Collection of 6 outstanding concerts

Hyde Park postponed twice, Vote for Change Tour, Outstanding covers, and Special Guests

After seeing Pearl Jam 6 times, my overall assessment is that Pearl Jam is one of the best live acts in music history.

In early 2020, I started planning the details for what would be Pearl Jam concert number 7 in Hyde Park, London, UK. The date was set for July 10th and the band Pixies was also announced to join as special guests. As expected, tickets sold out quickly via Ten Club and American Express pre-sales.

As you can imagine, the pandemic forced the band Pearl Jam to postpone its European tour dates.  This London July 10th show was initially postponed to 2021. The band Pixies was reconfirmed and Idles, a British band I recommend checking out, was also added. 

Unfortunately, the show has been rescheduled, again. It will not happen until the Summer of 2022. This is starting to become like Groundhog Day.

On the positive side, Pearl Jam has been back on the road recently at Ohana Festival in Dana Point, CA, and Sea.Hear.Now Festival in Asbury Park, NJ. 

The Concerts to be covered

Over the past two years, I have missed going to concerts. In preparation to start going back again¹, let’s take a trip down memory lane to 6 memorable Pearl Jam concerts:

• The One with the Election—October 2, 2004: Toledo Sports Arena, Toledo, OH, USA

• The One with Lollapalooza—August 5, 2007: Lollapalooza 2007, Grant Park, Chicago, IL, USA

• The One in New York—June 19, 2008: Susquehanna Bank Center, Camden, NJ, USA

• The One in Peru—November 18, 2011: Estadio San Marcos, Lima, Peru

• The One with Thanksgiving—November 29, 2013: Moda Center, Portland, OR, USA

• The One with the Rearviewmirror—April 9, 2016: American Airlines Arena, Miami, FL, USA

• The One with only Eddie Vedder (Bonus show)—June 22, 2019: WiZink Center, Madrid, Spain

Concert #1

• Date: October 2, 2004

• Venue: Toledo Sports Arena

• City: Toledo, Ohio

• Tour: Vote for Change

• Pearl Jam's Band Members: Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron, Stone Gossard, and Mike McCready

Fall of 2004. I had just started grad school in Ann Arbor and learned that Pearl Jam will be playing in my neck of the woods. A few months ago, Pearl Jam licensed a song for usage in a television show for the first time ever. An extract of "Yellow Ledbetter" was used in the final episode of the television series Friends.

For starters, I did not have a driver’s license yet. To make it more challenging, although it was an electoral year and I was living in a college town, I did not have a quorum to go. But I had to be there.

So, I did my homework, a la Leo Getz, and booked a driver to pick me up and take me back the 50 miles between Ann Arbor and Toledo. I arrived a little bit late so I missed most of the opening act from Death Cab for Cutie, a fellow Washington State band hailing from Bellingham.

The good news is that the show was an intimate one as only 6,000 people were in attendance. The setlist for that evening included a powerful blend of Pearl Jam's singles going all the way back to Ten and punk rock covers including “I Believe in Miracles” from Ramones, “Bleed for Me” from Dead Kennedys, and “The American in Me” from Avengers.

Here is where I learned that Pearl Jam usually has more than one Encore. Furthermore, I witnessed for the first time how it totally makes sense to wrap up a Pearl Jam show with "Rockin' in the Free World", by Neil Young, as the last song. Even though Neil is originally Canadian, this song might as well be the modern US national anthem.

Little did I know however was that Saturday night, Mr. Neil Young will join Pearl Jam onstage in Toledo, Ohio. What make it even more awesome was that another rockstar, Mr. Peter Frampton joined them for the spectacular closure. They played Dylan’s "All Along the Watchtower" along with Young's "Cortez The Killer" and "Rockin' In The Free World".

Stay tuned next post for Concert #2. Thanks for reading.

1. Aiming for Audacy Beach Festival (formerly known as Riptide Festival) in Fort Lauderdale Beach on December 4 and 5, 2021. The lineup includes Weezer, Twenty One Pilots, The Lumineers, Bastille, Cold War Kids, Modest Mouse, and Swedish House Mafia.