Rearviewmirror
As a pre-teen in the early ’90s, few things lit me up like the newly emergent Seattle grunge scene. I had been playing guitar for several years by then and most of those early years were spent idolizing hair metal shredders and learning Guns N' Roses solos note for note. But then at some point in 1991 I heard the four-chord intro to Smells Like Teen Spirit and my life changed.
Those four chords showed me that music was meant to move you. Forget formality. Forget the polish. Those four chords opened up a new world of bands who wrote songs with raw emotion and intensity. One of those bands was Pearl Jam.
The first Pearl Jam song that hooked me was Alive. That intro lick was (and continues to be decades later) so fresh. Shortly after hearing it, I bought the Ten cassette and played it on repeat. It was in the walkman. It was in the deck of my parents' 1988 Dodge Caravan. I played it in my room over and over and over learning the hard-panned guitar parts played by Mike and Stone. Pearl Jam had become my favorite band.
When the lineup for Lollapalooza ‘92 was announced, with Pearl Jam playing in the 2nd slot between Lush and The Jesus and Mary Chain, I knew I had to find a way to be there when the tour came to nearby Scranton, Pennsylvania. Being only thirteen, getting there would not be easy. I had no friends that could drive and my parents were not keen on the idea of dropping their thirteen year-old son off into a grungy mosh pit.
I’ve written before about how supportive my dad was in my musical endeavors. After weeks of badgering him to go to the show, he relented and agreed to go with me. It wasn’t the coolest thing to go to a rock show with your dad, but nothing would stop me from being there.
Long story short, the concert was located at Montage Mountain Ski Resort in the Pocono Mountains and the parking situation was a nightmare. We couldn’t park near the venue and needed to park several miles from where the concert was taking place. Concert organizers were bussing attendees from remote parking locations up to the base of the mountain where the bands were performing. It took us several hours to get from where we parked to the location.
As we stepped off the yellow school bus at the base of the mountain, I heard in the distance the familiar sound of one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs, Porch. They were already playing. Back in those days there was no setlist.fm so I had no idea how far the band was into their set. Turns out, they were pretty far into it. By the time we got to a vantage point of the band, they were well into Rockin’ in the Free World, which would be their final song. I was bummed to miss most of their set, but to this day I feel extremely fortunate to have caught a glimpse of their brilliance at that stage of their career.
Fast forward 33 years. Between 1992 and 2025, I never had the chance to see Pearl Jam again. I continued to follow and admire the band, but getting to a show just never worked out. That all changed last Sunday night.
Earlier this year when the band announced a pair of Pittsburgh dates, I made it a mission to attend. The tickets were hard to get (thanks Ticketmaster) and a bit pricey, but I would not be denied. I scored two upper level tickets, and Jilly and I circled the date on the calendar.
To say Sunday night’s show was worth the wait is an understatement. It was the final show of their Dark Matter world tour, and the band blew the roof off PPG Paints Arena to a more-than-capacity crowd. The air was electric – a mix of die-hard fans who’d seen them dozens of times and people like me who’d waited decades for this moment. You could feel the anticipation building as the lights dimmed and the crowd roared.
Early set highlights included an urgent & powerful version of Why Go that folded perfectly into Deep, two of my favorite tracks from Ten. Elderly Woman… was amazing as well, especially when Eddie turned over vocal duties to the crowd for the outro. Hearts and thoughts, they fade away. Chills. As expected, Even Flow whipped the crowd into a frenzy for the remainder of the first set, which culminated in a frantic rendition of Rearviewmirror that left the crowd dizzy.
The band left the stage for a few minutes and came back to play a 10-song encore that included unexpected songs like Hunger Strike (dedicated to Chris Cornell) and Crazy Mary, setlist staples like Alive, Lukin and Yellow Ledbetter, and covers of Rockin' in the Free World and Little Wing, which closed out the night.
Eddie’s voice was so good and the band was super tight, seemingly firing on all cylinders. The energy was electric. It seemed like they were actually having fun. That’s rare to see in a band nearly four decades into their run. Pearl Jam is something truly special.
Reflecting back on this experience, I think it was worth the wait. It’s pretty cool that 33 years after I first saw the last bars of Rockin' in the Free World at Lollapalooza, I got a chance to see the full version at a distinctly different stage of life. I lost my dad a long time ago, but Little Wing was one of his favorite songs of all time and I can’t help but think the universe was smiling at me at that moment. He would have loved to hear Pearl Jam’s version.
I’m not sure if I’ll get the chance to see Pearl Jam again. To be completely honest, I’m not sure I want to. The experience from Sunday will be a lasting memory and part of me wants to leave it at that – captured and catalogued alongside the 1992 memory for decades to come.