Pearl Jam made history this weekend by performing the entirety of their second ever album, Vs, first released in 1993. The performance took place at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina, while on their 25th anniversary tour. It marks only the third time ever that Pearl Jam have played a full album live – the first two performances took place in October 2014, when they played Yield in Milwaukee and No Code in Illinois.
Interestingly, this wasn’t announced in advance. The concert was just a part of their ongoing US tour – so any fans who weren’t a fan of Vs lucked out, but for everyone else, it was undoubtedly a night they’ll never forget.
The set list runs through the album in its entirety, but it didn’t end there. Eddie Vedder and co went on to play an additional 20 songs, including a cover of Pink Floyd‘s Comfortably Numb and The Who‘s Baba O’Riley, and some of their biggest hits, including Given to Fly, Alive, Better Man and Yellow Ledbetter.
WOW. #PJGreenville #PJTour2016 #vs pic.twitter.com/jgh5CpOGBf
— Pearl Jam (@PearlJam) April 17, 2016
It’s even more surprising as Pearl Jam’s bassist Jeff Ament has gone on record expressing his distaste for full-album performances. “I saw Cheap Trick do three albums and that was amazing. But for the most part I haven’t been a fan of that,” he told Rolling Stone. “When we did those albums, we were on the plane going to the show and Ed said, ‘Hey, what do you feel about doing No Code tonight?’ And then we basically scrambled and learned the five songs we hadn’t played in 10 years right before the show. And it created, like, a good tension. By the second or third song, the fans started realising what we were doing. We could sense that. I think the fact that we did it in Milwaukee and Moline was awesome. That was the greatest thing ever.”
Pearl Jam used to release bootleg recordings of every single concert they played, so fingers crossed a full recording of this special night will be available soon. For now, here’s some footage:
Image: Business Wire / Danny Clinch