On the heels of a summer European tour plagued by Eddie Vedder’s vocal issues that forced three cancellations, Pearl Jam got back to business tonight (Sept. 1) at the Centre Vidéotron in Quebec City, Quebec, on the opening night of its fall North American run.
The group opened with “Daughter” for the first time since 2010 and proceeded to play four more downtempo acoustic songs in a row at the outset, including just the fourth-ever performance of the Jeff Ament-penned Riot Act-era B-side “Other Side” (its first airing since 2018).
The set featured five songs from the 2020 album Gigaton, which Pearl Jam is ostensibly still touring behind after numerous COVID-19 postponements upended the original plans to support it around its release date. It also included classics such as “Even Flow,” “Do the Evolution,” “Corduroy,” “Black,” “Porch” and “Alive,” the latter of which Vedder dedicated to Pearl Jam fans/tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams as they compete in the U.S. Open.
The evening wound down with a cover of Prince’s “Purple Rain” sung by touring multi-instrumentalist Josh Klinghoffer and the hushed “Indifference” from the 1993 album Vs. Another rare song, the Binaural outtake “Sad,” was on the printed set list but was crossed out; it hasn’t been played since 2016.
Pearl Jam will head next to Ottawa on Saturday. The tour arrives in the New York area on Sept. 10 for a rare small venue show at the Apollo Theater (which will be broadcast live by SiriusXM) and a visit the following night to Madison Square Garden on the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Here is Pearl Jam’s Sept. 1 set list:
“Daughter”
“Footsteps”
“Buckle Up”
“Other Side”
“Off He Goes”
“Dance of the Clairvoyants”
“Why Go”
“Even Flow”
“Quick Escape”
“Corduroy”
“Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town”
“Who Ever Said”
“Take the Long Way”
“I Got Id”
“Mind Your Manners”
“Black”
“Porch”
Encore:
“Present Tense”
“Do the Evolution”
“Alive”
“Purple Rain”
“Indifference”
