Red Mosquito

They used to be more unpredictable. I remember when I first got into them (early 2000s) thinking how cool it was that you couldn't be sure if / when they were going to play their biggest hits during the concerts. It made it feel like they treated all the songs equally, like they gave them equal importance even though some of them are very famous. Maybe it's silly but I liked that

Certainly the last half an hour of shows has become super predictable over the past 10 years.

we need a second single this week so that we can stop talking about Pearl Jam (live)

igotworms wrote:Certainly the last half an hour of shows has become super predictable over the past 10 years.

Very few new fans will be made from their new material. It's simply not as relevant or of the same quality as it used to be. New fans will come from folks discovering their back catalog and older bootlegs, so it makes sense to ensure those fans get to hear that live to keep them coming back.

Yeah you don't have to try too hard to make the business case for doing things this way, nor do I think anyone is disputing it. It's common sense.

alive is one of their best songs. that riff is up there w/ anything else. i'm also fine hearing 'yellow ledbetter' at every show. they should stop playing jeremy so much.

They still sell out arenas because of what they repeatedly play.

As much as we love it on a micro level, there aren't three generations of Pearl Jam fans going to shows, finding babysitters, and paying to travel and/or park because of Gigaton or DM. These aren't exclusive fan-club gigs. I'm grateful that they throw us as many rarities and deep cuts as often as they do. They're one of the few bands on their level who still continually toss out as much diversity in their set-lists.

They'll start off playing 4-6 from DM for the first few dates, and that'll gradually settle into 2-3.

Jorge wrote:They used to be more unpredictable. I remember when I first got into them (early 2000s) thinking how cool it was that you couldn't be sure if / when they were going to play their biggest hits during the concerts. It made it feel like they treated all the songs equally, like they gave them equal importance even though some of them are very famous. Maybe it's silly but I liked that

Not silly. I miss this Pearl Jam

oneway23 wrote:They still sell out arenas because of what they repeatedly play. As much as we love it on a micro level, there aren't three generations of Pearl Jam fans going to shows, finding babysitters, and paying to travel and/or park because of Gigaton or DM. These aren't exclusive fan-club gigs. Be grateful that they throw us rarities and deep cuts as often as they do. They're one of the few bands on their level that still continually toss out as much diversity in their set-lists.

I don't know.

Man, when they bust out present tense I see people in the rafters ( the entire arena really) losing their minds and singing their faces off. It's quite impressive.

We've all heard a lot of live Pearl Jam, and most of us have seen a bunch of shows. And it's easy for us to sometimes imagine behaviors that may not be there or bring a lot of our own hazy memories into our thinking. But sometimes its helpful to actually look at the data rather than just make assumptions. Plus I don't want to start my work. So I looked at the encore set of all the shows on the last mini tour (8)

They played a total of 59 total songs over those 8 dates (an average of a little over 7)

There were 34 discrete songs out of those 59, so 58% of the songs played were only played once

Alive was played at all 8 shows (as it should be)

Then you had

Baba O'Riely x3
RITFW x3
Betterman X3
Wishlist x3
Last kiss x3
Yellow Ledbetter x3

So the next 6 most common songs you heard 38% of the time

Crazy mary
I won't back down
Got Some
Jeremy
Smile
Do the Evolution

were each played twice

Wildflowers
Small Town
Go
Purple Rain
Throw Your Arms Around me
Inside job
Not For You
Surrender
Given to Fly
Once
Garden
Street Fighting man
Lukin
Porch
Indifference
Unthought Known
Whipping
Spin the Black Circle
Imagine
Chloe Dance/Crown of Thorns
State of Love and Trust

Were each played once.


Even if you feel they play a lot of covers there were 10 different covers played (12 if you count Last Kiss and Crazy Mary - which I didn't) so a lot of variety there.


I'm not sure what you want to see, gang, but this feels in line with the standard concert approach. It's just the shows are down a few songs from the heights of 30 song set lists.

Strat wrote:

oneway23 wrote:They still sell out arenas because of what they repeatedly play. As much as we love it on a micro level, there aren't three generations of Pearl Jam fans going to shows, finding babysitters, and paying to travel and/or park because of Gigaton or DM. These aren't exclusive fan-club gigs. Be grateful that they throw us rarities and deep cuts as often as they do. They're one of the few bands on their level that still continually toss out as much diversity in their set-lists.

I don't know.

Man, when they bust out present tense I see people in the rafters ( the entire arena really) losing their minds and singing their faces off. It's quite impressive.

I hear you, really. That song has been played pretty consistently for almost three decades now, though. Sure, it was never a Jeremy-sized hit, but, it's kinda taken on a life of its own as a bit of a live anthem, especially after two decades of legal bootlegs.
It's not exactly Black, Red, Yellow.

Kind of trite and cliched, but, they really are the world's largest "cult" band. They'll never please everyone in every city, but, they do need to please most. For the fans like us, we get Help, Help every now & again.
It's a tough balance. I'm grateful Ed is as committed as he is with keeping records of the setlists, what they last played in each city, how often, etc..

oneway23 wrote:They still sell out arenas because of what they repeatedly play.

As much as we love it on a micro level, there aren't three generations of Pearl Jam fans going to shows, finding babysitters, and paying to travel and/or park because of Gigaton or DM. These aren't exclusive fan-club gigs. I'm grateful that they throw us as many rarities and deep cuts as often as they do. They're one of the few bands on their level who still continually toss out as much diversity in their set-lists.

They'll start off playing 4-6 from DM for the first few dates, and that'll gradually settle into 2-3.

I'm not sure how true this is; that's not to say that they would or should stop playing the hits, but they have an incredibly stable fanbase and level of popularity when it comes to live gigs, a stability that's been there for about 25+ years. They're still, for the most part, playing the size of the places they played when they started touring more consistently again. That period of time has been through all different types of albums (and even long stretches of time when there's no albums at all).

Again, that's not to say they're going to dump their biggest hits, but I just don't see that their popularity as a live act is hinging on having a certain number of greatest hits in the mix on any given night.

I do think they do a pretty good job of throwing in surprises; if I look at a setlist for a random show, even from the past few years, there'd likely be one or two things that would make me sit up. I'd love more stuff from throughout the catalog, but I think I'm just used to the fact that if a band has a 30-year catalog, there are going to be albums, even their best albums, that get short shrift.

And it sucks that binaural gets the shaft

digster wrote:

oneway23 wrote:They still sell out arenas because of what they repeatedly play.

As much as we love it on a micro level, there aren't three generations of Pearl Jam fans going to shows, finding babysitters, and paying to travel and/or park because of Gigaton or DM. These aren't exclusive fan-club gigs. I'm grateful that they throw us as many rarities and deep cuts as often as they do. They're one of the few bands on their level who still continually toss out as much diversity in their set-lists.

They'll start off playing 4-6 from DM for the first few dates, and that'll gradually settle into 2-3.

I'm not sure how true this is; that's not to say that they would or should stop playing the hits, but they have an incredibly stable fanbase and level of popularity when it comes to live gigs, a stability that's been there for about 25+ years.

Good post. I take your point. It's not so much that the sets are hinging on the hits, per se, but, they do need to please as wide a swath of the audience as possible, imo, especially as the songs per show, shows per tour, and likelihood of future tours all decrease.

It's much easier to mix up the setlists when you're playing 50+ shows on a tour and you only have 60-100 songs in your discography. The 1998-2005 shows did have a lot of variety, but probably not as much as you remember. Each tour had certain songs that would appear almost every show.

I just wish they mixed up the encore a bit to throw in 2-3 random songs. I was largely fine with their 2022/2023 sets.

Won't happen, but would love to hear them mix up the regulars, like the alternative version of Jeremy from the '95 tour (which was just haunting) and something like the slow version of Lukin from MSG 2010.

Go should open ever PJ show.

Monkey_Driven wrote:It's much easier to mix up the setlists when you're playing 50+ shows on a tour and you only have 60-100 songs in your discography. The 1998-2005 shows did have a lot of variety, but probably not as much as you remember. Each tour had certain songs that would appear almost every show.

I just wish they mixed up the encore a bit to throw in 2-3 random songs. I was largely fine with their 2022/2023 sets.

i just posted all this data on how they still do that!

stip wrote:

Monkey_Driven wrote:It's much easier to mix up the setlists when you're playing 50+ shows on a tour and you only have 60-100 songs in your discography. The 1998-2005 shows did have a lot of variety, but probably not as much as you remember. Each tour had certain songs that would appear almost every show.

I just wish they mixed up the encore a bit to throw in 2-3 random songs. I was largely fine with their 2022/2023 sets.

i just posted all this data on how they still do that!

I see your data Stip. I don’t think the sets are less varied, I think we perceive them differently because from around 2013-2018, the shows felt like they were just grabbing stuff from left field, and they were playing nearly 35 songs a night where now 25 is pretty close to the average.

I do wish Eddie would cut some of the chatter, though I wonder if that’s because he’s buying time for another band member for breaks between songs?

Did somebody say a new single this week?