Friday was like a national holiday for me: tickets for Pearl Jam’s spring tour went on sale. And though the Fenway Park shows won’t go on sale for another few weeks, I took advantage of the April school vacation week to purchase tickets to the April 18 show in Hampton, VA. There is the possibility of other shows, as well, but I wanted to guarantee we got to at least one show before inevitably buying tickets to both Fenway shows in August.
I have been a huge Pearl Jam fan since the early days when, working for WAAF, I was fortunate enough to 
see them twice in a week at small venues in and around Boston: the first at Cumnock Hall at UMass-Lowell (not a great venue for acoustics) and two nights later at a packed Axis onm Lansdown Street. That night, the band was on and played with an edge. I think it was Jeff Ament who threatened violence if any of the equipment was damaged, and Eddie was spot on all night, including a snippet of Soundgarden’s “Outshined.” I was hooked from those two shows on.
My wife, Dayna, is a relative newcomer into the world of PJ. Though she knew of the band and of some of its better known songs, it wasn’t until she bought me tickets to a show at the DCU Center in Worcester that she truly understood the magic of the band. There, she witnessed pure perfection, as PJ did one of its usual high-energy, perfectly-performed nights. There is no better live band in the world, and they proved it that night (and virtually every other night on the Lightning Bolt tour). Less than a year later, we agreed to use “Future Days” as the first dance at our wedding.
Our son Cam is a huge PJ fan. Though he has severe special needs, he can always identify a PJ song and listens to them constantly. Hampton will be his first PJ show, Dayna’s second, and at least my 20th (I’ve lost count – I need to go back and document which shows I have been to in the next month or so).
Over the past year, I have been working on my list of Top 100 Pearl Jam songs. As always, it is a work in progress, and on any given day it could look slightly different. However, as of January 31, 2016, this is what it looks like. No covers unless they have been released on a non-live album. The other thing is I enjoy all of these songs and listen to all of them at one time or another, so being at the bottom of the list is not a big deal. I’d love to see what others view as their top 10, 25, 50, or 100 songs (and let me know if I repeated any – I don’t think I have but my eyes are getting old!)
For the record, Dayna’s favorite is “Unthought Known” and Cam’s, by best guess, is “Even Flow.”
Top Pearl Jam songs
- I Am Mine
- Alive
- Porch
- Lightning Bolt
- Do The Evolution
- Man of the Hour
- Unthought Known
- Future Days
- Rearviewmirror
- Corduroy
- The Fixer
- Not For You
- World Wide Suicide
- Animal
- Jeremy
- Mind Your Manners
- Elderly Woman
- Given to Fly
- Just Breathe
- Wishlist
- Smile
- State of Love and Trust
- Down
- Release
- Getaway
- Nothing as it Seems
- Better Man
- Once
- Black
- Daughter
- Go
- Hail Hail
- Life Wasted
- Why Go?
- Even Flow
- Sirens
- WMA
- Got Some
- Glorified G
- In Hiding
- Habit
- Deep
- Indifference
- Lukin
- Dissident
- Red Mosquito
- Garden
- Gonna See My Friend
- Spin the Black Circle
- Infallible
- Who You Are
- In My Tree
- Leash
- Last Exit
- MFC
- Love Boat Captain
- Oceans
- I Got Id
- Immortality
- Swallowed Whole
- Inside Job
- Tremor Christ
- Yellow Ledbetter
- My Father’s Son
- Blood
- Sleeping by Myself
- Nothingman
- All Those Yesterdays
- Supersonic
- Insignificance
- Dirty Frank
- Parting Ways
- Pendulum
- Satan’s Bed
- Pilate
- Rats
- Brain of J
- Light Years
- Soon Forget
- Off He Goes
- Leatherman
- Whipping
- No Way
- Parting Ways
- Breakerfall
- Bushleaguer
- Save You
- Thumbing My Way
- You Are
- Gone
- Severed Hand
- Amongst the Waves
- Last Kiss
- Footsteps
- Rival
- Low Light
- Evacuation
- Comatose
- Brother
- Arc
Rant and Roll 