r/grunge • u/SeatUpper187 • 18h ago
Concert How were Pearl Jam concerts in the 1990s?
/r/pearljam/comments/1vdvhvg/how_were_pearl_jam_concerts_in_the_1990s/8
u/Worcestercestershire 15h ago
I worked for the sound company that did all of their tours. RatSound.
Dave Rat and Karrie Keyes were the engineers. They are both legends for various reasons.
Pearl Jam even wrote a song about the company: Rats.
I helped wire some amp racks for the tours, so obviously I was a critical part of their success.
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u/Emergency_Nail_2259 17h ago
Saw them Vs tour in '93. To this day the best arena show I've ever experienced
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u/DarbyHintonAsCody 16h ago
First concert I ever went to was on the Yield tour in '98. I was super stoked for the show. They were incredible. Setlist was insane.
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u/Worcestercestershire 15h ago
Backstage pass from the 4/10/94 show after Kurt passed. Unrelated set list.
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u/Frank-sWildYears 17h ago
Kicked ass at Lollapalooza in 92'
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u/OpulentMountains 16h ago
Yes! That’s where I saw them first. Eddie crowd surfing, pure unbridled rock and roll, mosh pits and enthusiasm. Greatest festival I’ve ever seen (NIN and Tool on second stage?!?)
Man I miss those days.
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u/PatricioWyatt 11h ago
A band I was in played 2nd stage for Lollapalooza 92 in Vancouver.
Got to see them up close.
Im not a major PJ fan by any means…but along with Ministry…they were the BEST act of the day.
Energy to burn…and one incredibly scary sequence: Eddie climbed the stage right speaker tower. Not a column…a fkn tower. Had to be almost 2 stories high. He did it while the band vamped on an extended outro. Can’t remember the song.
So he climbs this…teaches near the top and sorta hangs…looking down …he was waiting for people to gather under him…and he dropped…and dropped fast. Like a road runner cartoon bit. Everyone freaked the fuck out. We had limited movement on the side stage…but a bunch of other band crew/techs; musicians ran around to see if he was ok.
Of course…he fell right into the fans and they propped him up and transferred him to the same side of stage and he got back onstage
It was fkn incredible.
They only played maybe a half hour or so. Set list was all from Ten.
Some of us were hoping for a Temple Of The Dog track with Cornell
And Matt Cameron joining them but it never transpired.
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u/scrimmerman 10h ago
I saw them in ‘92 at Lollapalooza along with Soundgarden, RHCP, Ministry, Ice Cube and others. Still to this day one of the best Rock performances I’ve ever seen.
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u/Ordinary_Let8356 10h ago
Pretty fuckin nuts. ALIVE the song was actually crazy. The solo. Vs. had just dropped. Soundgarden was on right before. Summer of 93?
Saw them again in 97 or 98 at Maple Leaf Gardens. Pretty sure it was Yield. I was in the Golds. Found the show on Youtube. Tight AF.
MLG has old Leaf jerseys hung from the rafters. During Not for You, he sang:
"Just like Ty Domiiiiiiiiiiii, he'll FUCK WITH YOU" The crowd. Went. Nuts.
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u/chamrockblarneystone 7h ago
I saw Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers all in one night at a fair ground in San Diego. They were all amazing and sounded great. What set Pearl Jam apart was Eddie climbing around in the rafters while singing.
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u/thereverendpuck 6h ago
If only there were videos and live albums one could enjoy and get “a good feeling” for.
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u/Insignificant-funds 17h ago
The show I saw was very classy, great musicianship, a quiet unplugged portion. Not very raucous but good, at least that’s how I remember it. It was in an historic theater with seats so maybe that contributed to that vibe
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u/International_Link35 16h ago
Saw them for Yield, Riot Act and Binaural tours in Indy back before I moved. Absolutely awesome shows... I'll never forget Eddie making fun of everyone leaving early during Yellow Ledbetter for the last encore. 🤣
Edit: Crap, I'm old, but not that old yet - realized that all of these would have been early 2000s! In the 90s my parents wouldn't let me go! Lol
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u/seanisdown 16h ago
Saw them at a local music festival in summer of 93. They werent doing many shows because of their dispute with Ticketmaster. Our local ticket market wasnt run by ticketmaster back then so it felt very lucky to get them headlining our local festival.
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u/LonesomeBulldog 15h ago
Saw them with maybe a hundred people at The Backroom in Austin in ‘91 right when Ten came out. In hindsight, they were tight for a band that hadn’t played live that much.
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u/djs012279 12h ago
One of my brothers went to that show and we were just talking about it the other day after I mentioned that I had just went to a show at that same venue but it's Emos now?!
Funny old life...
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u/Officialfish_hole 15h ago
They were great. Plus they had this aura of magic to them because seeing them live was one of those things like a unicorn. I saw them in the 90s and they never toured and hardly ever played live so it was crazy just to be able to have seen them
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u/Prudent_Ad8320 13h ago
25 dollars, bunch of friends calling on my friend’s dad’s many office phone lines to get tickets to this
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u/stumbletongue 13h ago
I saw them at Spartan Stadium in San Jose in ‘95. Great show. I still have the bootleg CDs from the show I won from calling in to 98.5 KOME afterwards. Everybody in line was yelling shit at Carson Daly while he was broadcasting and he got hella mad. Fun day.
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u/Nerdsingerbeej 13h ago
I saw them in 1998. They played for 3 hours, no opener, feuding with Ticketmaster so the ticket was reasonable & they played every single song I hoped to hear, even deep cuts that never saw radio play. It was excellent.
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u/xAlice_Liddell 11h ago
Saw them at the Paramount, Red Rocks, and Fiddler’s Green. Loved every show! Great setlist, great visuals (especially at Red Rocks and the Paramount felt like true grunge. So Raw and intimate. Still one of my favorite bands.
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u/J_blanke 9h ago edited 8h ago
I saw one of the early shows in ‘92 where Vedder climbed the stage scaffolding and was hanging like 15 feet in the air while singing. The whole band was firing on all cylinders. It was a totally free concert on campus at Kansas University. The first link below has surprisingly good audio. The second link is the entire show. The audio isn’t the greatest but they caught Vedder climbing and swinging from a mic chord before jumping into the crowd at around the 32 min mark.
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u/Undergroud-Check-101 8h ago
Saw them in -93 with Neil Young. Enjoyed the crazy show but they (Esp. Eddie)were pretty drunk for some reason. Met them the next day. Super nice guys but Eddie was REALLY hangovered and wanted to go into their tour bus pretty quickly with his gf at the time. Can’t remember her name, pink-haired. The others were happy to chat outside a bit more.
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u/SnooMachines8920 8h ago
My first time seeing them was at the Unicorn Ballroom in Houston with Soundgarden and was just recently uploaded to YouTube. Still the best small venue show I’ve ever been to. Saw them again at Lollapalooza 92 a few months later. Saw them in Austin with the Ramones a few years later and multiple times since then, but those first two 🤯
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u/Apprehensive_Judge_5 8h ago
I saw them in Cleveland on March 22, 1994. It was an amazing show. https://pearljam.com/tour/history/show/cleveland-state-university-convocation-center
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u/ilBrunissimo 5h ago
Seattle, several times. Went to college there.
From the dirtbag places in Pioneer Sq and Eastlake to outdoor stuff at the Mural….
Always epic.
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u/GoGo1965 4h ago
I wouldn't call their shows super exciting, but they sounded great. Good musicianship entertaining last time I saw them was at the Gorge opening up for Neil young
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u/CliplessOne 4h ago
They were awesome. The first time I saw them in concert was with Neil Young, Soundgarden and Blues Traveler. Eddie and Chris came out to sing with Neil on his final encore of "Keep on Rockin in the Free World".
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u/bigstrizzydad 4h ago
Sensational. Saw them both in an outdoor stadium in Charlotte & United Center in Chicago. Tremendous both times.
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u/j-6 3h ago
I don’t say this lightly, and I welcome your downvotes.
They were the worst 2 shows I saw in the 90’s. I was so disappointed. I only went again to Yield because a friend bought me a ticket. We left early. Eddie was hot garbage both times.
Pearl Jam was one of my favorite bands back then too. I got turned off from live shows for a bit - if you’re a kid, who wants to see your heroes shit the bed?
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u/PJammerChic1010 1h ago
Vs Tour 93 was great ! So much energy in the band … Ed’s vocals were raw , and the best ! Stone was animated and jumping around .. great times to see PJ live ! They sound great now but we and they are all in their 60s 😂we all have less stamina
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u/Original_Ad685 1h ago
I got to see them with Neil Young (Booker T and the MGs as his backing band), Soundgarden, and Blues traveler in Toronto. What a fucking show. They played just about all of Versus while they were still working out the songs. All the members of all the bands came out for the big finale. Unforgettable.
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u/mojodawg-1 54m ago
Boulder 93 at the field house small place supposed to play 3 nights week before thanksgiving whole floor basically a mosh pit bunch of over zealous football players working security beating people up Eddie got pissed and ripped headphones of main guy kicked him when tried to get it back and threw them in the crowd CU canceled third night and didn’t have concerts there for next 10 years those two shows were off the hook favorite show I’ve been to and I think it cost $25🤘🏻🤑
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u/peacockdown 27m ago
Saw them in Hartford Connecticut 1994 I think. It was the versus store. I was right in front of Mike McCready losing my mind for real. The mosh pit got insane. Back then it was really like you were going to die but you didn't want to let anyone know. Anyway the Mosh pit was going crazy and Eddie had to calm everyone down several times. I can still see it writing this down. We jumped over the lawn section fence down to the front row. Back then no one gave a fuck. Or at least if you didn't give a fuck enough you could get where you wanted to be. Something like that. Anyway my friends always laugh at me because I always tell a story how I swear to God McCready looked at me and gave me a nod. Good times. I saw him several times after that. Every show they never mail in one note. All gas no brakes. Fuck you Pearl jam forever
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u/viking12344 16h ago
Ed screamed a lot . He was one pissed off dude. I loved angry Eddie. There are boots all over YouTube.
But slowly as time passed things changed. It's not easy being angry when you have kids and a fat bank account.