Crafting My "Dream" Two-Night Pearl Jam Setlist

Aside from watching copious amounts of sports, one of my favorite hobbies is listening to music for people at least twice my age. I sometimes get quite passionate about this.

A band like Pearl Jam gives that passion a little extra juice, not just because of their studio output (which is at points inconsistent but overall quite strong) but perhaps even moreso for their live performances. I have seen Pearl Jam two times, and it feels like I have barely dipped my toe into the pool. They vary their setlists greatly from night to night, digging up deep cuts, spanning their whole catalog, and slipping two or three covers into almost every set. The live experience is essential to one's relationship with most artists they love, but Pearl Jam does take it to a higher level.

From the beginning, fans traded bootleg tapes to spread the gems they were lucky enough to hear in exchange for something they missed. In response, starting with their tour promoting Binaural, the band has released practically every concert they have played since 2000. Your favorite Pearl Jam recording is probably out there on YouTube or Spotify or as an eBay listing, waiting for you to find it.

I think a lot about "dream" setlists for my favorite artists, whether they are young or old or dead, and Pearl Jam provides the best fodder for such an exercise. They have plenty of songs that are dear to me and have established an adventurous enough ethos that just about any fan-authored setlist would get a warm reception from the audience.

With that in mind, I have concocted a pair of Pearl Jam setlists — 26 songs each, no repeats — meant to be played over the course of two nights. I made a few concessions to convention, dropped a few favorites that have apparent reasons to never be played again (sorry, "Falling Down" and Buddy Holly's "Everyday"), dropped a few others because they didn't fit anywhere, and made it a rule to include on each night at least one song from every album the band has released. With those requirements, I still aimed for the kind of shows I would want to see.

Night 1

Set 1

1. "Release" (Ten, 1991)

Let's get one thing out of the way: Ten is the best Pearl Jam album. It is also the Pearl Jam album that least interests me. Five of the band's seven most-played songs are from Ten, and another three have been played more than 200 times each. They have to check a few of these boxes every night, which removes a lot of intrigue and takes away space that could be given to something more novel. Ten is the most "Pearl Jam"-sounding release to people who don't listen to Pearl Jam, the album whose songs you are by far most likely to hear on the radio on any given day, the album that introduced me to the band because "Even Flow" was on Guitar Hero III and the CD was buried in my Pearl Jam-ambivalent parents' cabinet. I have not heard every song on Ten in concert yet and am extremely comfortable with that.

While there will not be many songs from Ten on these setlists, there will be some, and not just because there must be. "Release," my favorite song on the album, makes the cut. What makes it — and other sad, slow-building songs in Pearl Jam's repertoire — such an excellent opener is its blend of the anguished and anthemic. In concert, it is like a hymn, with the audience finding one voice to confess their pain to the skies.

2. "Animal" (Vs., 1993)

Initially, I had a quieter song here, but after opening with an exorcism, the crowd will not stand for an immediate descent. Spirits are high. We need something loud and visceral. Fortunately, Vs. contains the best songs in the "loud and visceral" category of Pearl Jam's discography. "Animal" will do just fine.

3. "Wreckage" (Dark Matter, 2024)

In Pearl Jam's fourth decade together, they face a difficult philosophical question: What do we want Pearl Jam to be? Other rock artists in their "legacy act" period have faced it before, especially after losing a member. On rare occasions, you get a hard left turn before the afterlife, like David Bowie's Blackstar, and some artists find ways to reinterpret their past selves and put out something surprisingly fresh, like Rush's Clockwork Angels. And many — particularly in metal — fail to evolve, putting out milquetoast, bloated albums that fit alongside their hits but do not quite connect the same way.

Dark Matter, produced by Millennial dad-rock enthusiast Andrew Watt, does not provide a tidy answer to that question. The album presents no challenges the listener, with a few stock rockers and some instances of overt homage to what Pearl Jam was at their peak. Take "Wreckage," a song whose jangly riff draws from "Daughter" and "Falling Down" and whose chorus is pure 90s power-pop chum.

Yet from the first moment I heard it, "Wreckage" became my favorite song off Dark Matter, and it is a major reason the album is the band's best since at least Backspacer. Am I a sucker? Does it matter? I genuinely am not sure. While Pearl Jam will be a far less interesting band if future albums are so tinged with nostalgia, I cannot deny the effect it had on their most recent release.

4. "Tremor Christ" (Vitalogy, 1994)

This lumbering beast has become something of a rarity since the Yield Tour, appearing at fewer than 30 shows this century. I think most fans would love to hear it more often.

5. "Hail, Hail" (No Code, 1996)

Ideally, "Sometimes" would precede "Hail, Hail," as on the album, but the time to make that happen would have beeen the start of the set. "Hail, Hail" is both a quality rocker and one of the classics that best show off Pearl Jam's sensitive side. Not many male rock bands one would ever ask, "Are you woman enough to be my man?"

6. "Thumbing My Way" (Riot Act, 2002)

Now, we can bring things back down a bit with a lowkey track from the band's most tumultuous period. This era followed or overlapped with the Ticketmaster boycott, multiple drummer changes, Mike McCready checking into rehab, Eddie Vedder suffering from writer's block, the disaster at Roskilde, and occasionally hostile reception to the band's protests against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pearl Jam maintained a sizable core of fans during the Bush years, but it was a weird time in the band's history, and their records (Binaural, Riot Act, Pearl Jam) were uneven and in places inaccessible.

The loyal listener nevertheless found rewards in songs like "Thumbing My Way," a morose yet pretty acoustic number. "Morose yet pretty" describes many of Pearl Jam's best songs of the 21st century, and I have tried to include a good few of them.

7. "Who You Are" (No Code, 1996)

Grunge's reputation of dour self-loathing is not exactly unfair. Alice in Chains' Dirt is a masterpiece fueled by drugs and despair. Nirvana's In Utero is an intentionally repulsive record born from Kurt Cobain's demons and brought to life by own his screams and those of his guitar. The Momma-Son trilogy that was the foundation of Pearl Jam is a story of trauma and failing to process it. Grunge's focus was pain.

That carried over to how the movement ended, which all coincided with No Code's release in August 1996. The previous month, Alice in Chains played their final concert with Layne Staley. Soundgarden was disintegrating due to personal conflict and exhaustion. Cobain had been dead for two years.

No Code still landed at No.1 on the charts but did not stay there, with many fans and reviewers put off by the lack of snappy or arena-ready singles, the weirdness of "In My Tree" and "I'm Open," the noisiness of "Habit" and "Lukin," and Stone Gossard's lead vocals on "Mankind." But through all these experiments you can hear a shift in Pearl Jam's perspective on angst. Much of album is about confronting your failings, flaws, and fears, in order to achieve self-acceptance and therefore self-improvement. As "Who You Are" says, a person does not need to be anything more than themselves:

Stop light, plays its part

So I would say you've got a part

What's your part? Who you are

You are who, who you are

8. "Dance of the Clairvoyants" (Gigaton, 2020)

Gigaton is the worst Pearl Jam album, brought down by a few bland rockers and sometimes overstepping the line between necessary political urgency and being overwrought or just lame. ("Seven O'Clock" calls Donald Trump "Sitting Bullshit," which is an even feebler insult than the dollar sign in the title of "Bu$hleaguer.")

"Dance of the Clairvoyants," though, represents a genuine experiment, as it is the band's first-ever song using a drum machine. The spacy keyboards and crunchy guitar work add some flavor to Pearl Jam's package of mostly meat and potatoes.

9. "Daughter" (Vs., 1993)
Tag: "It's OK" (Dead Moon cover; first performed November 3, 1996)

In the process of putting this together, I realized that Vs. is likely my favorite Pearl Jam album. Seven of the 12 tracks make the cut for these two nights, the most of any album. (Vitalogy and No Code are behind it with five apiece.) This surprised me, since I have long thought Vitalogy held that title. Indeed, the latter has the band's two best compositions, and if you ignore the meandering interludes that are intentionally not songs, its track list is undeniably deeper.

Still, if you compared the top half Vs. to that of Vitalogy, the former narrowly wins. Actually, let's do that. I have combined all the songs on the two albums into a combined ranking:

Vs. has four first-tier Pearl Jam songs and three bona fide concert anthems, whereas Vitalogy only has three and two, respectively. Vs. has seven songs in the top 11 of these (very official) rankings. Again, Vitalogy has the stronger bottom half, but Vs. has more classics — including "Daughter," a magically bouncy and bittersweet acoustic song that gets a response from the whole arena.

10. "World Wide Suicide" (Pearl Jam, 2006)

Later Pearl Jam albums have a problem where the band comes out like they need to prove they can still rock for a while before getting into the more personal, more interesting songs. Most of these rockers are pretty disposable, and even the good ones are sort of interchangeable. "World Wide Suicide" is not that much better than "Life Wasted" or even "Comatose," the songs sandwiching it on Pearl Jam, but it can serve the purpose of reintroducing some more of Stone's chugging, Townshendesque chords.

11. "Given to Fly" (Yield, 1998)

Every once in a while, I will wonder if "Given to Fly" is really so great. Then I listen to it again on a long drive with the sound up. Despite its quiet verses, lack of any danceable groove, and somewhat pretentious Christ figure narrative, it is a universal fan favorite in concert because of how it alternates between jangle and thunder. Eddie uses all the power in his voice to soar over Mike and Stone's cacophony of guitars and an equally chaotic drum performance from Jack Irons, creating a visceral, irresistibly shoutable chorus. In other words, yes: it is so great.

12. "Swallowed Whole" (Lightning Bolt, 2013)

I will use this space to defend Lightning Bolt, which is far from a masterpiece but is a fine late-career album that frequently lands near the bottom of fans' rankings. I understand this to a degree; in a generous mood, I might call it the 9th-best Pearl Jam album out of 12. But it has good songs!

Or maybe it was just the Pearl Jam album that came out while Chandler was in high school. Either way, I enjoy "Swallowed Whole." There likely are four or five better songs on the album, but it it works better than those as a change-of-pace song in the middle of the set.

13. "Thin Air" (Binaural, 2000)

Eddie does not often try to write straightforwardly about love and sex, so I guess Stone had to do it for him. The final product is actually pretty warm, if not exactly fit for a wedding playlist, calming and tender without becoming corny or uncomfortable.

14. "Nothingman" (Vitalogy, 1994)

Here's an idea that's too cute to actually be good: An encore with all of Pearl Jam's "Man" songs — "Better Man," "Dead Man," "Leatherman," "Man of the Hour," and "Nothingman." There's even room for "Mankind" or a couple covers, like "Street Fighting Man" or "Man on the Moon."

The problem, of course, is that three parts of the "Man" pentalogy are absolute downers, and that includes the gorgeous and aching "Nothingman." One of this band's underrated strengths is sparse songs like this, where Eddie shows he is not just a classically brawny rock frontman or a moody mumbler, but an extraordinary singer.

15. "Porch" (Ten, 1991)

We needed a rocker here. "Porch" frequently comes with an extended jam heading into the final chorus, during which Eddie meanders around — or in a past life went jumping off of things or writing on himself — but we can truncate that this time. If it was closing a set, we could use that kind of triumphant moment, but I have something else in mind.

16. "Breath" (Singles soundtrack, 1992)

Despite liking the key members of the grunge wave and their works, the movement as a cultural artifact does not appeal much to me. By the time I was born, it was in the process of being supplanted by atrocious butt-rock and nu metal groups. While young people often adopt a pastiche of eras they never knew, I never aspired to the early-90s aesthetic of baggy, mismatched clothes and rough-edged graphic design. (This is where it is worth mentioning that most Pearl Jam album covers are bad.)

Perhaps this is why I have never made an effort to see Singles, which features Ed, Stone, and Jeff Ament as members of a fictitious band named Citizen Dick and is mostly soundtracked by contemporary alt-rockers. But I can say that Pearl Jam's contributions to that soundtrack are rock-solid.

17. "In Hiding" (Yield, 1998)

"Given to Fly" and especially "Do the Evolution" are the two songs from Yield that Pearl Jam just about always fits into their setlists, but "In Hiding" is secretly the best on the album. If "Given to Fly" was made for crowds to shout in unison, "In Hiding" was made for them to scream. In Atlanta recently, the band played the song for just the 100th time; I am blessed to say I was there for two of those times. Both were deeply cathartic moments.

18. "Present Tense" (No Code, 1996)

The Last Dance is a fascinating docuseries because, by nature of being a piece of propaganda for a narcissist, it becomes a surprisingly honest character study whose subject cooperates with and approves of its production because he views his pettiness and mistreatment of others as merits worthy of propagandizing. It is a one-sided and incomplete telling of Michael Jordan and the Bulls' story, but its pro-Jordan agenda is so obvious that its one-sidedness and incompleteness form a meta-text unto itself: These are the people Jordan hates, fairly or unfairly. These are the people Jordan values, genuinely or hollowly. These are the motivations he cannot quell long after conquering the world.

The fact its first episode dropped in April 2020, as the world buckled in for a long bout of quarantine, means audiences were primed to gravitate toward The Last Dance. I found it marvelously entertaining. The moment that sealed it, though, was its closing montage. Thematically, "Present Tense" has no place here — Jordan is redigesting his triumphs, not past regrets. He projects immovable self-assurance, not a lonely inability to forgive himself. Yet the song's climax, layered over the journey we just took for 10 hours with the Bulls' dynasty, is an undeniably enthralling combination.

19. "Rearviewmirror" (Vs., 1993)

As descendants of hardcore punk, part of Pearl Jam's ethos is bouncing around and screaming until you have exorcized whatever stress and fear and anger were stuck in your system. They still try to achieve this effect on their albums, but it does not hit the same way when everyone in the band is about 60 years old. There is no need to try and capture the energy of "Rearviewmirror" when you have already made a song like "Rearviewmirror," which starts with its foot on the gas pedal, accelerates to a blaze, and resolutely crashes out.

Encore 1

20. "The End" (Backspacer, 2009)

These days, a Pearl Jam encore opens with a song or two from a solo Eddie, who sits with his acoustic guitar and tries to make everyone cry. (He often succeeds.) In that vein, let us start with "The End," the heartcrushing closer to Backspacer about a man facing terminal illness, about to leave his family behind. I could have also put its foil in this spot, Lightning Bolt's beautiful "Future Days," but perhaps like many Pearl Jam fans, I am more pulled to the agonizing song than the optimistic one.

21. "Drifting" (annual vinyl single, 1999, and Lost Dogs, 2003)

The band has not played "Drifting" since 2010, which in some respects is understandable — it is a lesser-known non-album track, it is not a rock song, and honestly, playing a song about giving up all your money and hitting the road rings a little false when you look at the price of admission to a Pearl Jam concert these days. I am a sucker for a folk song with a bit of harmonica, though, and it would be a tremendous treat to hear "Drifting" live one day.

22. "Comfortably Numb" (Pink Floyd cover; first performed November 11, 2015)

According to their website, Pearl Jam has played more than 300 different covers, and they add to that nearly every month they are on the road. Some of these are just teasers or tags onto jams, and many come when Eddie is alone on his stool with his guitar, but one of the defining characteristics of a Pearl Jam concert is the question of what covers they will play in the encore.

While occasionally the band hints that they are aware of current rock acts (see the pre-show rotation of music on the public address system, which has included Big Thief and Idles), their wheelhouse is the classic rock of their youth. First appearing in 2015, "Comfortably Numb" had a four-year run of being played 22 times before the band seemingly dropped it from the rotation. It has all the attributes of a great Pearl Jam cover, though: The original is magnificent, everybody in the crowd can sing along, and it closes with one of the greatest guitar solos of all time, ready for Mike's own take.

23. "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" (Vs., 1993)

Returning to a theme from earlier: At my first Pearl Jam show, I spent much of the night — and even the next day — sobbing. I told someone afterwards it felt like meeting God. This was not an exaggeration. I believe in no higher power, fate, or afterlife, but congregating with a few thousand temporary friends to shout these words is the closest I can come to a religious experience:

I just want to scream... hello...

My god it's been so long, never dreamed you'd return

But now here you are, and here I am 

 Our hearts and thoughts, they fade away

24. "Let My Love Open the Door" (Pete Townshend cover; first performed February 5, 1995)

"Let My Love Open the Door" made five appearances over six months in 1995 and has never been performed at another Pearl Jam show. The final rendition, at Soldier Field that July, is a favorite of mine and shows what kind of magnetism it could have if they revived the song.

25. "Corduroy" (Vitalogy, 1994)

The paradox of "Corduroy" is that a song about rejecting fame and adulation is arguably the most anthemic thing the band has ever written. When Pearl Jam retires, it may well be the third-most-played song in their catalog, behind only "Even Flow" and "Alive." Veterans of Pearl Jam shows may be a little tired of "Corduroy," but it still gives me chills.

26. "Fuckin' Up" (Neil Young & Crazy Horse cover; first performed June 16, 1993)

There are many great covers in Pearl Jam's arsenal for ending a show. The closer needs to be recognizable, and if it cannot create the festive atmosphere of "Baba O'Riley," it needs to melt faces. "Crazy Mary" and especially "Rockin' in the Free World" have done this job on plenty of occasions. I love "Sonic Reducer" but think it is a little too aggressive to close, working better before a singalong like "Alive" or "I've Got a Feeling."

"Fuckin' Up" fills this role well: Pearl Jam has played it dozens of times, so fans know it well even if they have not listened to Ragged Glory, and it gives Mike ample room to shred before leaving the stage.

Click to enlarge. (Or skip if you'd rather read about Night 2.)

Night 2

Set 2

1. "Off He Goes" (No Code, 1996)

Sonically, we ease into Night 2, but emotionally, we throw our audience into the deep end: "Off He Goes" is one of the most painful songs in Pearl Jam's arsenal. Eddie Vedder, tired of writing about how much it sucks to be rich and famous, sings about how much it sucks to know someone as rich and famous as Eddie Vedder in the mid-90s.

He is unkind in the way that someone can only be about themselves — he has introduced the song live as "what it's like to be friends with an asshole" — portraying himself as absent because he is addicted to being the star he claims he hates to be. Innumerable musicians have written about the personal tolls of life on the road or in the public eye. Rare, however, is the song that acknowledges the inherent selfishness of being a traveling musician, in particular a globally famous one.

2. "The Long Road" (Merkin Ball, 1995)

Because there is someone in the audience who did not cry during "Off He Goes," we need to take additional measures to break them as well. This is one of the first of many songs Eddie has written about death, wishing a friend could have stayed behind and asking: "Will I walk the long road?" In the end, after a magnificent swell, as Ed ponders the cycle of each day and the inevitability of seeing loved ones die, Neil Young arrives to answer with surprising comfort: "We all walk the long road."

3. "Wash" ("Alive" B-side, 1991 and Lost Dogs, 2003)

With that, we should get things moving. "Wash" opens a show fairly often, owing to its gradual buildup, and it can help this set build some momentum. It is not as deep or as affecting as either song before it, but it does its job here as a fan favorite.

4. "Whipping" (Vitalogy, 1994)

Straight-up rawk.

5. "Nothing as It Seems" (Binaural, 2000)

This is one of the band's most layered compositions, with Jeff plucking an upright bass and Stone Gossard laying a rock-steady foundation for Mike McCready to make his guitar wail and coo. One of the things I will remember for a long time from my first Pearl Jam show is the massive, fuzzy hum that filled the arena when they fired up "Nothing as It Seems." Even on a good sound system, the studio recording does not do the effect justice.

6. "Infallible" (Lightning Bolt, 2013)

My initial pick for this spot was "No Way," off of Yield. I enjoy listening to it; however, the song's sentiment just feels so... self-centered? Pearl Jam has spent their whole career not being a band that stops trying to make a difference, perennially supporting progressive causes and political candidates. A song that says that sometimes you need to step back take care of you and yours isn't wrong, but I don't know if it comes across the way Stone meant when writing it.

For an anti-complacency message with a similar marching beat, here is "Infallible" in its stead.

7. "Dissident" (Vs., 1993)

Either "Dissident" or "Glorified G" could go here to bring the crowd into the show with a cut from Vs. before we head off into some newer, more obscure material. I do not love "Dissident," but in a list of 52 songs, it is necessary to include some that I merely like.

8. "Retrograde" (Gigaton, 2020)

The best song on Gigaton is "Comes Then Goes," a heartfelt dirge for Chris Cornell. However, it has not once been entirely played live and maybe never will, probably for the same reasons "Hunger Strike" is almost never played in concert anymore.

The second-best song on Gigaton is "Retrograde," a song about climate change and one of the rare Pearl Jam recordings for which the word "sprawling" would not be inappropriate. I have thought its climax could find another level in a concert setting, with a light show and an audience, but the pandemic may have kneecapped whatever chance it had to catch on.

9. "Down" ("I Am Mine" B-side, 2002 and Lost Dogs, 2003)

The first time I listened to Lost Dogs in full was at the Kansas City airport. It was two nights before Christmas, and I had missed my connecting flight home by less than half an hour, meaning I had to wait two more hours until I could get on a new plane. Everyone around me, sitting under the oppressive concrete façade of MCI, was in a similar boat, equally miserable while babies cried and a dog in a crate yelped without end. I tried to down it out with Lost Dogs and, predictably, did not develop a positive association with large chunks of its track listing.

Over the years, I have gradually given some of these songs another try and found that I like them in a more normal setting. "Down" is in fact a fine mid-tempo rocker that would have countered a lot of the dourness of Riot Act if it hadn't been demoted to a B-side.

10. "Speed of Sound" (Backspacer, 2009)

"Speed of Sound" is the least-played song on Backspacer, having appeared on just seven of the band's setlists. That is exactly one-sixteenth of the number of times "Got Some" has been played. I won't pretend "Speed of Sound" is a true hidden gem, but it is a whole lot better than "Got Some."

11. "Sleeping by Myself" (Eddie Vedder solo recording, 2011 and Lightning Bolt, 2013)

I know there is a contingent of Pearl Jam fans that think they should have stayed the grungy, heavy band they were in 1993, and there is no reason for Ed to play instruments that are insufficiently rock or write about wimpy subjects like parenthood or aging. To them I say: More sad ukulele songs.

12. "Grievance" (Binaural, 2000)

Here's a quick reinjection of energy to the set. "Grievance" has become a relative mainstay in the band's setlists as the second-most played song from Binaural. It is solid if not spectacular.

13. "Red Mosquito" (No Code, 1996)

If this was a list of my 52 favorite Pearl Jam songs, the similarly heavy No Code track "Smile" would rank ahead of "Red Mosquito." The latter serves a couple of different purposes, however: hearing a song I haven't heard live before and inserting something more familiar to the rest of the crowd. Each creates a fantastic cacophony that works well in concert.

14. "Green Disease" (Riot Act, 2002)

We needed a song from Riot Act. "Save You" is evidently the band's default choice to play live, which fits their larger pattern of mostly playing their most straightforward single from a given 21st-century album. I don't think it is dramatically better than the rest of the record. You could pick "You Are," "1/2 Full," or "Love Boat Captain" for this spot; I settled on "Green Disease" for no exact reason.

15. "Amongst the Waves" (Backspacer, 2009)

The prevailing mood of Backspacer is positivity, something rather uncharacteristic of... well, any other point in Pearl Jam's history. Considering how much of that the band attributed to the election of Barack Obama, whose presidency was arguably defined by misplaced optimism, maybe that positivity looks a little naïve today.

But the band was also in a good place. The personal instability of the Binaural and Riot Act years were gone, and Pearl Jam was coming up on their third decade together. (At the same time, Matt Cameron was about to rejoin Soundgarden.) Backspacer was their first release on their own label. It was the right time to put out a triumphantly gentle, comfortable song like "Amongst the Waves."

16. "Got to Give" (Dark Matter, 2024)

You could strip out most of Dark Matter's aggressive, heavy songs and not lose a thing, but "Got to Give" deserves to stay because there it has all the best parts of late-period Pearl Jam. Everything feels purposeful rather than templated. When the song pauses for a spaced out bridge, it is not to check the "bridge" box but to properly build back up to a soaring conclusion. It is vulnerable, a song about how hard it can be to get through to someone you love. Even on the studio recording, it is as loose and fun as a live performance. It is the band's most anthemic song in a long time and a genuine treat.

17. "State of Love and Trust" (Singles soundtrack, 1992)

We now cover similar thematic ground, but with a song that has been played more than 400 times rather than just a handful of times. Entering the home stretch, it's time to rattle off some early-90s classics with some oomph. Mike's chugging opening riff is instantly recognizable red meat for a crowd, and deservedly so.

18. "Why Go" (Ten, 1991)

I have mixed feelings on the places where funk rock's influence shows up on Pearl Jam's work — the worst example being the Red Hot Chili Peppers pastiche "Dirty Frank" — but there are places where it clearly gave the band a sense of groove. Take "Why Go," a song driven by Jeff and Dave Krusen and taken over the top by its defiant, punkish chorus.

19. "Blood" (Vs., 1993)

To be honest, I do not know that Eddie should still be performing "Blood," considering the miles he has already logged on his larynx. It even went six years without being played until a shock inclusion at Fenway Park last September. If "Blood" still lives, I would love to hear it. It is, after all, the band's best song for channeling one's urge to smash things.

Encore 2

20. "Don't Let Me Down" (The Beatles cover; first performed August 17, 1998)

I cannot find a recording of this cover, which the band did just twice while touring Yield. Would it be the best cover of "Don't Let Me Down?" Probably not. (Gene Clark has that covered.) But I sure bet Eddie Vedder could sell it.

21. "Indifference" (Vs., 1993)

Pearl Jam uses "Indifference" as a closing song in concert a shocking amount. It is a fantastic final song to an album, as it was for Vs., but a live setting would seemingly require something more... triumphant? Warm? Not so full of despair?

Anyhow, "Indifference" is one of the best portrayals of depression in music, almost ambling from verse to verse over sparse instrumentation and returning to the refrain: "How much difference does it make?"

22. "All Those Yesterdays" (Yield, 1998)

Here is the antidote to "Indifference," a time for the rest of the band to step up and encourage the audience to take care of themselves instead of turning to destructive behavior. "All Those Yesterdays" is another surprising rarity, considering how well it serves its purpose at the end of Yield.

23. "Come Back" (Pearl Jam, 2006)

It was either this or "Light Years." Both are about wishing to see a dead friend again, and both rank among the best Pearl Jam songs this millennium. "Come Back" is arguably the best Pearl Jam song this millennium. I have heard it in concert and want to hear "Light Years" next, but Night 2 already has a couple cuts from Binaural and no others from Pearl Jam. "Come Back" it is.

24. "Jeremy" (Ten, 1991)

If "Release" is my favorite song off of Ten, then "Jeremy" is the best. Jeff has laid many great bass tracks in his career, but none have the same perfect tone and hair-raising impact as this one.

25. "Better Man" (Vitalogy, 1994)
Tag: "Save It For Later" (The English Beat cover; first performed September 26, 1996)

"Better Man" is my favorite Pearl Jam song, as it likely is for something like a fifth of their audience on a given night. It is a tragic story of a woman unable to escape an abusive relationship yet a beautiful, uplifting piece of music that momentarily causes one's soul to transcend their body. I have heard "Better Man" twice in concert, and I have twice wept in front of strangers to it. It is truly magical.

26. "Yellow Ledbetter" ("Jeremy" B-side, 1992 and Lost Dogs, 2003)

Somehow, Pearl Jam does not usually close concerts with "Better Man." There really is no topping it, no coming back with something better, but that brand of catharsis is not the specific tone Pearl Jam aims for before calling it a night. They like to go out like the stragglers at the end of a party, where everyone waves their arms in unison and more or less knows what they're saying to each other but doesn't know everything they're saying to each other. "Yellow Ledbetter" is the quintessential Pearl Jam concert closer, the last call and the farewell hug and the promise that everyone will be back here someday soon.