Pearl Jam

I feel like the old guy when I talk about the boom of the early '90's era Seattle Music Scene. Most of the kids who started listening to it were in Junior High or High School. Here I was in my early 20's and all of my friends were (and still are it seems) listening to the Glam bands of the '80's: Poison, Cinderella, Motley Crue, AC/DC and Def Leppard.

I was first exposed to Alternative/Grunge from hearing Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit on the radio. I loved how unpolished they sounded. Watching their video's on MTV, I also noticed they were not Glam. No Big Hair or Leather Pants.

I really liked this Grunge stuff and heard Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains and more playing on my local Alt Rock Station. This was before the internet and YouTube so it was only on the radio that you would find this music. Nirvana's Nevermind was the first CD that I ever purchased. I had to record it onto a cassette to play in the car!

Pearl Jam's debut album, Ten

Not too long after, I ordered a whole new batch of CD's from the Columbia House Music Club. The one CD from that box of "A Dozen for 1 Cent" I received contained Pearl Jam's Ten. I opened the box and found a pinkish album cover with a bunch of hands in the air like a group High Five. I couldn't wait to listen to all they had to offer. I think I'd heard Alive, Evenflow and Jeremy on the radio by now and I finally get to have control of how many times I could hit "Repeat Track".

I remember jumping through the intros to each track to find the songs I knew. Then listening to the whole album, I found out how awesome the songs Black and Release were. Porch with its "What the Fuck..." opening line! You just don't hear that on the radio.


Being a member of the Columbia House Music Club, you would get a new CD every month to try out. If you didn't like it, you sent it back but you could of course keep it and pay for the CD's you kept. I was sent a steady stream of Alternative music by all the bands I was growing to love: Faith no More, The Red Hot Chili Peppers (RHCP), Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, REM, Nine Inch Nails, Foo Fighters. I'd also get the occasional band I didn't know. Temple of the Dog and Mad Season are two that kind of made me stop to think. Again, this was an age of no internet so wondering how Mad Season's lead guitarist was also in Pearl Jam was something to speculate. How did the drummer from the RHCP end up playing with PJ? And how the hell could two super groups combine to be Temple of the Dog? I also had to track down a very rare recording that I heard once called "Yellow Ledbetter". I don't remember where I first heard it, didn't know the name, nor what album it was on. I barely remembered the tune by the time I found it on an EP with Daughter.

Years go by and I'd listen to all these bands, especially Pearl Jam. I was working a job where I could put the headphones to my portable CD player and jam all night to Ten, Vs, and Vitalogy. I moved to a day shift and a position where I couldn't listen as much to my favorite CD's then life got in the way and I drifted away from Pearl Jam. I still listened to a lot of alternative but it kind of morphed from the angsty, raw music that it was.

Fast forward a dozen years. Again, I'm in a job where I can plug my headphones into my computer and listen to streaming internet radio, Slacker in this case. Slacker Radio was kind of a precursor to Pandora. You could create a station based on your favorite music. Of course I selected groups like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice in Chains, etc.

Pearl Jam - Live at Benaroya Hall

One day I hear a familiar voice but a song that I didn't recognize. It sounded like Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam but still the song...I just didn't know it. I looked at the screen and saw an album cover I'd never seen. There it was..."Pearl Jam".

Well of course, this was now the age of the internet so I had to start researching this! What I found was astonishing! I didn't even know that Pearl Jam was still making records let alone recording all the shows as bootlegs! I had missed 5 studio albums.

I don’t even remember what song I heard but I was hooked. YouTube became my best friend. I started looking up anything Pearl Jam. Found the albums I’d missed, listened to the concerts, read all the bios of the band. I learned how intertwined they were with the other Seattle bands and how they worked together on other projects like Temple of the Dog, I read about Jack Irons, the RHCP drummer who took his turn at the drum kit of PJ and how Matt Cameron became their permanent drummer.

I decided that I wanted to see Pearl Jam in concert. It was about 2010-ish and I found out that I just missed them in Salt Lake City. PJ did a lot of shows but mostly overseas. I watched and waited but it wasn’t until 2018 that the stars aligned and they would be coming close! I was online right at the time tickets went on sale but they were sold out before I could even get a turn to purchase. I held out hope that I could score a ticket. I even pondered driving to Missoula, Montana and hanging outside of the venue to hear them ala Foreigners Juke Box Hero.

I joined a Facebook group for the 2018 Missoula Show and started planning this trip. Still looking for a ticket, I started befriending other Pearl Jam fans who were going to the show. We would comment to each other about this and that, where to stay, where to eat.

I finally scored a ticket just weeks before the show. Looking for a place to stay, finding everything was pretty much booked, I thought I’d just camp in the National Forest. It would just be a short weekend so it would work out fine. Then an angel appeared!

A fan who lived a short drive away happened to offer up a place to stay on his 5 acres of pasture. He knew there were other fans in the same boat as me. I messaged him and got a feel for the place. I mean I didn’t want to end up in some stalker, serial killer, trap! He said he was a firefighter and as a so called fan, I decided I could check it out. If I didn’t get a good vibe, I’d bail to the forest.
All he wanted was a donation to the porta potties he was renting. I talked with a couple other people who were planning on staying there too.

A row of tents in Chris's yard in Stevensville, Montana

I headed up and was pleasantly surprised to find others gathering at Chris’s pasture. This was the beginning of becoming part of the “Jamily” as they are called. First I met a rock hound named Chadd who immediately gave me a fossil like I was an old friend. I met Chris in person, thanked him, gave him a few bucks for the use of his facilities and found out how much of a fan he is - like about 130 PJ concerts strong of a fan!

That night I just slept in the back seat of my truck. During the night several more autos and RV's showed up. I woke up to find some friends I'd been chatting with. Shauntae, her BF and I hung out a lot. I met others too, so many others: Jeff, Patrick, Shanda, Ryan, Jessica, Danielle, TJ and another Chris! Don't forget the half dozen Jennifer's that I met too!

No eared, hornless, Evil Little Goat!

The whole trip was like my own personal Woodstock. I had a long weekend filled with Pearl Jam. Missoula had events going on all weekend that were related to the concert, the group and the cause. For this concert, it was all about voting, registering to vote, and doing our part as citizens to make our choices known. There was a complete festival before the show that even included the "Vote Goats". I thought one looked like an Evil Little Goat! I saw the tribute band Washed in Black who helped get me in the mood for some live PJ tunes. Stood in the Merch line for some shirts, chatting with other concertgoers who were all just as excited for the show.

All of us were there to experience what I think of as not just a concert by a rock band, but more of an experience. Almost a religious type experience. Not a God-Like experience but s spiritual one. A moment for me where I heard songs from nearly the past 30 years of my life. Songs that held memories for me. Memories of me singing Release while standing right in front of my big speakers. Memories of jamming to Not for You and Corduroy while working the graveyard shift. Memories of Eddie Vedder's funny face while singing Jeremy on MTV. Pearl Jam has been with me for a long time and I'm excited to Spin the Black Circle with Gigaton and everything else that comes from them. Hail Hail Pearl Jam!

If you listen to the Bootleg of the show, you can hear the following moments. Here are photos to picture what I saw unfolding before me:

Set List! The show started with Pendulum which seems to be a fan favorite set opener. 

The "I love Sex and Beer" Duo - Him in Red and her in Black on the right.
Ed has the stage crew bring them both out a Corona and we all watch them chug it then he
says he doesn't want to see the other half of their shirts happen.

The young lady who got the tambourine from Ed!

"Fuck You that was Fake News" moment when Ed chewed out a guy for being too rowdy.