5

Alive
Pearl Jam
1991

You heard my story about the recent Pearl Jam concert and my parking anxiety back when I covered song #21. Now it’s time to tell you about my first Pearl Jam concert, in 1995.

Going to a Pearl Jam concert in 1995 was a big deal (in my book, it’s still a big deal - these guys are still great). They had released three massively successful and amazing albums, and they had just taken on the racket that was (and is) Ticketmaster. So there I was as a college freshman of about a month when the band went on their Vitology tour. I still remember being in my grandmother’s house calling on the phone to get tickets (that was one of the ways you got tickets to concerts in those days, kids!). Anyway, the concert was great but it was the aftermath that has stayed with me these nearly 30 years later. We’re walking right outside the Delta Center in Salt Lake City and one of my friends and I decide to buy bootleg concert t-shirts for $10 each. I hand the guy $20 for two shirts, and all of a sudden the guy takes off and out of nowhere two other guys come and grab me and confiscate the t-shirts, apparently because they were illegal, and take off. It all happened so fast, I don’t know if they were undercover cops trying to break up bootleg t-shirts or whether they were in on a scam with the guy who “sold” us the shirts. It was wild. (And if you’re the guy who was with me when this went down, please fill in the details I’ve since forgotten!)

Anyway, Pearl Jam. One of the best bands of all time. I came thisclose to picking Yellow Ledbetter as my song. I love it, it’s probably my 1B next to my 1A. But I had to go with the ol’ original for my one and only pick. When my parents got me a car when I got home from my mission, I had a choice to make. No, not which car to get, that was decided for me. I had to decide what I was going to pop in the CD slot for that first song driving off the lot. And that song was Alive. This one has long been one of my favorites, and one of the coolest things I’ve seen was at their concert last year when they played Alive as the next-to-last song in the encore, and midway through the song they brought all the house lights on. I’ve only seen that done twice — when U2 walked out to Elevation during their Elevation tour, and when Pearl Jam played Alive. Only legends can pull off playing bangers in arenas with the house lights on. And this song is a definite banger.

Other Songs Considered:
Here are my Top 25 Pearl Jam songs.