Eddie Vedder to curate a “tailored set” for Pearl Jam’s long-awaited return to Australia in November

It’s been 10 long years since Pearl Jam performed in Australia and they promise the wait will be worth it when their epic Dark Matter tour opens. See the video.

Kathy McCabe

@McCabeRadar

5 min read

October 12, 2024 - 12:35PM

National News Network

Sneak peek at Pearl Jam's upcoming Australian tour

Music

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It has been 10 years since all five members of Pearl Jam graced a stage in Australia.

Back in early 2014, the rock gods were the headliners of what would be the final Big Day Out festival.

Buckled by financial catastrophe and the seismic shifts wrought by music streaming, the Big Day Out’s demise would be the canary in the coalmine for the sustainability of festivals, as hip hop and pop stars rose to become headliners and rock bands were relegated to the second and third tiers of the line-up.

Backstage at Boston’s historic Fenway Park ahead of their long-awaited return to Australia, guitarist Mike McCready looks genuinely shocked when jokingly asked if his band killed Big Day Out.

McCready and his Pearl Jam bandmates are planning “tailored” sets for their Australian tour. Picture: Jim Bennett/Getty Images.

“I don’t know what killed Big Day Out! I hope we didn’t do that,” he said, laughing.

“But my apologies to Australia; we should’ve been back and I don’t wanna piss you off.”

McCready has fun memories of the last time they toured here with bandmates Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and Matt Cameron, arriving a week early to go surfing on the Gold Coast with friends.

His “excuse” for Pearl Jam’s absence from a country where fans have stayed the course for three decades underscores why they have managed to outsell and outlast most of the bands who exploded in the grunge era in the early 1990s.

Vedder and the band keep the vibes high during the Dark Matter shows. Picture: Jim Bennett/Getty Images.

They kicked off their current Dark Matter tour in May, a few weeks after the release of their 12th studio album, and as they completed the American leg in Boston in September after more than 30 shows, they looked and sounded like a band loving their rock life.

“We’re sporadic and weird about how we tour. We’ll go to Europe and then we’ll do Canada and (America) and now Australia and there’s a method to the madness and sometimes the method takes longer than we all want,” he said.

“I think getting away from each other, and we don’t talk to each other or see each other … although I live really close to (guitarist) Stone so sometimes I’ll see him and our kids play together, but we have been able to kind of get away from each other for a significant amount of time.

“And that allows us to get back together and it seem fresh.”

The band bond stays strong by not spending 300 days a year on the road as they did in their youth. L-R Multi-instrumentalist Josh Klinghoffer, bassist Jeff Ament, lead guitarist Mike McCready, singer, songwriter and guitarist Eddie Vedder, drummer Matt Cameron, guitarist Stone Gossard and keyboardist Boom Gaspar. Picture: Jim Bennett/Getty Images.

The sustainability of life on the road for the musician, from a mental health perspective, has been a hot topic in music industry circles in recent years.

Younger artists whose stars have exploded seemingly overnight and have then booked big tours have found the going tough, with Lewis Capaldi, Shawn Mendes, SZA, Pinkpantheress and Chappell Roan among those who have cancelled dates to prioritise their health.

McCready said Pearl Jam learned that lesson the hard way too.

“We’ve been doing that (sporadic touring) for a long time … because we’d drive each other f … ing crazy if we were around each other all the time,” he said.

“You know, absence makes the heart grow fonder and I think you have to get away from something that you love sometimes to get a perspective of it.

“I feel that we’re lucky we’re around still and that fans still come out generationally but we don’t go out on tour for 300 days anymore.

“We started that way when we were young but we’re all too f … ing old to do that anymore and it wouldn’t be good, we would break up from that.”

Pearl Jam bring the Dark Matter tour to Aussie stadiums next month. Picture: Danny Clinch

Pearl Jam fans are a committed breed who like to travel in celebration of the band. They took over Boston over the few days the enduring rockers were in town to play their final two shows on the US leg.

They came from the UK and Europe, from every corner of the US and many excitedly shared how they were heading to Australia to see all five shows on the Gold Coast and in Melbourne and Sydney next month.

That significant investment in their love of this 34-year-old band which burst out of Seattle in 1991 with the debut album Ten is not lost on McCready and his band mates.

The guitarist said frontman Vedder is Pearl Jam’s setlist scientist who will spend hours studying what songs the band has played in each city over the past three decades to devise what they will perform at each gig.

On the first night in Boston, fans got hits including Jeremy and Rearviewmirror but on the second show, Daughter and Black made appearances.

When I begged McCready to lobby for Black backstage ahead of the second show, he also hoped it would make the setlist because “that one has been fun to play. I’ll put the word in for you.”

“I would say we’ve got 200 songs including covers (to draw from) and we change the set every night,” he said.

“We’ll come into a city, say Boston, and Ed will go ‘In 1992 we opened up with Release and we closed with this song, so we can’t do that’ … he’s very anal about that, to the point of making a specifically tailored set for that night.

“And he’ll do the same for Australia.”

McCready and Vedder on stage Madison Square Garden on September 3, 2024. Picture: Jim Bennett/Getty Images.

The band signalled their love for their fans here last year when they released the long lost live album Give Way recorded on March 5, 1998, at Melbourne Park during their Yield tour for Records Store Day.

All five members cite a handful of Australian bands as strong influences on their early sound, from AC/DC to The Angels.

“I discovered rock when I was 11 and started playing guitar when I was 12 and AC/DC with Bon Scott was my jam,” he said.

“And The Angels; I loved Doc Neeson; my band when I was a kid used to do No Secrets, it’s a beautiful song. Doc was so cool but I never got to see them play live. I remember they did Seattle once and it was a show for a dollar!”

Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter tour opens at the People First Stadium, Gold Coast on November 13 and then they head to Melbourne’s Marvel Stadium on November 16 and 18 and Sydney’s Accor Stadium on November 21 and 23.

Limited tickets available via livenation.com.au/

Pearl Jam setlist, Fenway Park, Boston, September 17 (final Dark Matter show on US tour)

1. Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town

2. Even Flow

3. Daughter

4. Animal

5. Save You

6. Immortality

7. Corduroy

8. React, Respond

9. Running

10. Not for You