Seattle grunge icons Pearl Jam have wrapped up their 2024 touring activities with a special show in Sydney.
The final show of their Dark Matter World Tour (and the final date of their first Australian tour in a decade) took place at Sydney’s ENGIE Stadium on Saturday (Nov. 23), and featured a 27-song set full of hits, deep cuts, and the typical cover versions.
One of the more notable covers was the band’s rendition of “Hunger Strike”, originally recorded by Temple of the Dog for their sole self-titled album which peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard 200 in 1991. Considered something of a retroactive supergroup due the presence of future Pearl Jam and Soundgarden members, the original version features respective frontmen Eddie Vedder and Chris Cornell sharing co-lead vocal duties on the track.
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It’s become a grunge anthem, and as a result, it’s sporadically been played by Pearl Jam, with its last appearance in the band’s set being at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit in October 2014. It had previously been a staple of Cornell’s live sets prior to his passing in May 2017.
Pearl Jam’s final Australian show also featured covers of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Little Wing”, with their 11-song encore set opening with a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s “No Surrender”.
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The first time it had been performed since the band’s appearance in New Jersey in June 2006, this particular performance saw Vedder solo armed with an acoustic guitar as he dedicated the track to its creator. Dubbing Springsteen “a great friend of mine and a brother of mine”, Vedder explained that if he hadn’t been performing the final show of Pearl Jam’s world tour, he would have been watching The Boss wrap up his own world tour in Vancouver.
“Bruce Springsteen is magic and he makes magic, and he works hard to make magic,” Vedder told the crowd. “And then sometimes it’s easy for him to make magic, but he also has songs of strength.
“I know for him, as well as us, it’s been a tricky time in our nation back home,” he continued. “We’re going to be OK. It’s just going to take some time, a bit of a reset. But we will lean on music when words fail us.”
Previously, Vedder had performed “No Surrender” alongside Springsteen at New Jersey’s Continental Airlines Arena in October 2004 as part of the 2004 Vote For Change tour. That same performance also saw Vedder guesting on a rendition of “Darkness on the Edge of Town”.
