The latest installment of our Great Concerts series is all about Pearl Jam.  I’ve been to many great Pearl Jam concerts and they will definitely pop up again in this series but I thought I’d start with one of their more memorable shows.  As usual click on song links to stream them and the full concert is available to download at the end of the post.

This show took place at Downing Stadium at Randall’s Island on September 29th 1996, the second night of a 2 night run and part of the No Code tour.  For those of you non-New Yorkers (and maybe some who are), Randall’s Island is technically a part of Manhattan, although it is it’s own island situated in the East River between Manhattan, The Bronx, and Queens and is only accessible via the Triborough Bridge (now the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge).  Meaning you either need a car or one of the shuttle buses that run to the island.  Downing Stadium (replaced in 2005 by a more modern structure) was basically constructed for track & field events.  It was a big open outdoor structure with giant concrete seating areas surrounding it.  It was pretty massive and used for things like Lollapalooza.

Anyway enough about the venue, you get the idea, it was basically a patch of grass with a big ass stage in the middle of an isolated island a couple of minutes from Manhattan.  Here’s the other thing you need to know before we actually get to the show.  This was back when Pearl Jam was battling Ticketmaster, so they would not play Ticketmaster venues and also did ticketing through a group known as Fans, Tours & Tickets or FT&T.  This made actually getting a ticket to one of these shows quite a process.  It was mostly mail order.  I got mine through the always great Ten Club.  The one thing that was wonderful about these tickets were they were designed by the band, and as an anti-scalping measure actually had your name printed on them.  I’ll include a scan of my actual ticket later in the post.  Oh and did I mention it was only $27.50 after fees?

Now onto the show itself.  The door time was 5pm, so it was still light when legendary Seattle band The Fastbacks opened.  They did an exceptional set.  Next up was a still at the time relatively unknown Ben Harper.  I remember hating his set.  However I’ve heard much from him since and love him now.  Anyway finally the sun set and Pearl Jam took the stage.

We’re going to try something a little bit different tonight.  I’m anticipating the songs to be played better tonight then they ever have been played, and maybe, I just have this feeling there’s going to be more songs tonight then we’ve ever played.  OK having said that relax, it’s all about your ears, the air around you, enjoy yourself.

That statement from Eddie Vedder opened the show.  And he was not just fucking with the audience.  This was going to be epic, so epic I’m not the only person who considers this a great concert, it is in fact counted among the greatest the band has ever played to this day by many fans.

The set opened with Sometimes for a great relaxed vibe, but then roared into Go.  The huge field was filled from the front to the very back of the stadium by a huge mosh pit that went crazy.  It was an insane mass of people.  I being both young and with my mother and also being short (which I’ll admit I still am) observed this all from the giant concrete bleachers.  You could see security guards pulling unconscious people from the crowd.  Things were really, really out of control.  It didn’t help that the band was on a streak of real rockers: Spin The Black Circle, Hail Hail, and Animal.

Animal – Pearl Jam Randall’s Island 9-29-96

Animal gets stopped in the middle by Ed.  He’s not liking what he’s seeing in the pit.  He’s genuinely upset.  He says it’s like an ocean and there’s undertow and sometimes if you go down you can’t get up.  He does some crowd direction to try and help security get some people out.  He asks everyone to take a few steps back.  After a few minutes they start right back where they left off as if they never stopped playing.

One song later and Ed is back talking to the crowd telling everyone that they need to calm down.

If someone was hurt tonight to the point where they didn’t live after tonight I don’t think we’d ever play again.

That particular quote is poignant since a few years later there was the famous incident of people getting crushed to death at a Pearl Jam show.  Things continued with some more relaxed tunes for a little while, including Corduroy which will be featured prominently in the next Pearl Jam edition of Great Concerts.  But all that went to shit when they did Lukin.  After stopping the show again to help some more people out of the crowd with the promise that every minute of deadness would be made up for later with more songs they continued with “a song of peace, love, and happiness” Betterman.

Actual Ticket from this show. Click for full size.

One highlight of the show came a little later on when they played New Jeremy.  Everyone knows Pearl Jam became super mega famous for Jeremy and they’d spent years sort of having to play it, because at this point they were still big for it and people wanted it.  Naturally they got sick of it and in 1996 they started playing this sort of remixed version that was more laid back and wouldn’t even be recognizable if it weren’t for the iconic lyrics.

New Jeremy – Pearl Jam Randalls Island 9-29-96

The only picture I could find of this show. Courtesy fivehorizons.com

They whipped through an amazing amount of material from Ten up to the current album, No Code.  Every single note was right on.  They really were playing these songs the best they’d ever been played.  The band was putting their all into this show.  Mike, Ed, Jeff, Stone, and Jack Irons (who would leave the band after this tour to be replaced by Soundgarden/original Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron).  They even threw in some awesome b-sides like I Got Id (aka I Got Shit).

I Got Shit – Pearl Jam Randall’s Island 9-29-96

And they ended the first encore with a personal favorite b-side/cover Leaving Here (originally recorded for the Home Alive foundation benefit album “The Art of Self Defense).

Leaving Here – Pearl Jam Randall’s Island 9-29-96

But I’m getting ahead of myself.  First the show itself had to end before there could even be an encore.  So after a close to 2 hour set already the band launched into an explosive version of Porch which featured Vedder wrapping his entire body in duct tape during a solo.  Then making this speech during the slower instrumental:

If you trust me at all, if you listen to me at all, which you certainly don’t have to, speaking from experience I can tell you that things change.  You can believe me, you don’t have to, they probably won’t change unless you make them.  The best way to change something that’s around you, something you don’t like, is to change yourself.  I don’t think you want other people changing you, I think the only person you want changing you is yourself.  So if you ain’t happy, if you’re reading magazines about Generation X-ers and thinking “yeah I’m one of them” well fuck that.  Don’t let anybody tell you who you are.  Oh no.  No one can tell me who I am.  I could tell you who I am but that would be a long story.  I could tell you who I am and it wouldn’t fit in a Rolling Stone, it wouldn’t fit in a video, it wouldn’t fit, it’s my life.  It’s your life.  You’re the only one who knows who you are.  I hope you know who you are.  If you don’t know who you are figure it out, cause you are somebody.  And I’m probably stating the obvious but I just thought I’d do it anyway.  So if you feel like you’ve got a piece of duct tape on your mouth, if you feel like you can’t speak, take it off! Speak up! Speak your mind! Shout it out! Let ‘em hear ya! Shout out!

The energy was explosive as the song ended and the band left the stage.  They came back and someone threw a t-shirt onstage that said “Vedder For President”.  To this Ed commented:

Ah yes I admit I smoked pot, but I didn’t exhale.

That was timely in 1996.  They then launched into In My Tree which Iron’s owned.  This was followed by the massive hits Even Flow and Daughter.  Daughter usually features a cover built into the end of the song when they play it live and this show they worked 4 songs in, one not a cover.  Stereolab’s Noise of Carpet, The Who’s The Real Me, Pink Floyd’s Another Brick In The Wall pt 2, and their own W. M. A. It was quite amazing expanding a 3 minute song into a 10 minute epic.

Before launching into Mankind Stone requested a “Stone, Stone, Stone” chant.  The first encore ended with Leaving Here as mentioned earlier.

When they re-emerged Eddie said:

I just checked, it’s been two and a half hours.  Are you up for more?

That got a huge cheer.  Such a big cheer in fact that it was followed by:

We were just going to do one more but we can do a couple.

Even bigger cheer.  The first chords of Yellow Ledbetter are played but then stopped and the band has a little meeting.  Then they go into the only played twice times up till that point Off He Goes, following that up with the only played once Present Tense.  This was really special.  Before launching into the final song, the usual closer Yellow Ledbetter, Eddie once again addressed the crowd.  I’m just going to let him do the talking himself on this one:

Eddie wants to keep playing all night – Randall’s Island 9-29-96

I’m going to add the full setlist and links to the full show audio, but first as you are reading this Pearl Jam’s 2010 North American tour has gone on sale on Ticketmaster.  I’m personally attending both New York shows.  You can buy tickets (and I highly suggest you do, as any Pearl Jam show is better than most bands shows) by going to the link below (also you support the site by buying through our link)

Pearl Jam Tickets at Ticketmaster