Alexander Sink 
Pearl Jam Dark Matter 2025 Tour
Alexander Sink
April 29, 2025
State Farm Arena, Atlanta, GA
This year marks thirty-five years since Pearl Jam first formed, when Eddie Vedder first sent his infamous Momma-Son cassette to Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, and it would be hard to believe that any of them even imagined that they would still be playing together all these years later. Through five drummers, Ticketmaster stand-offs, the loss of close friends and fans, and just the everyday stress of being a band, not only has the band survived but they have thrived. Their fan base is one that rivals some of the best of all time, and is just as dedicated as any fan of the Grateful Dead, Jimmy Buffett, Dave Matthews Band, or Phish. The culture of the band and its fans has grown and changed over time, but is still as fun as it ever was.
Pearl Jam released their latest album, Dark Matter, in April 2024, which kicked off an extensive and successful multi-country tour of the album; and just like every Pearl Jam concert, this tour includes an encore to show their love and appreciation for their devoted fans. The encore is a five-city, ten-night (plus New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) tour, and Atlanta was stop number two on the tour, after an opening weekend in Hollywood, Florida. We were fortunate to be there for night one of Atlanta and a great opening night in one of the band’s homes away from home.
I will confess, I had not been to see Pearl Jam since the 1998 Yield Tour, so I was not sure what to expect. Early Pearl Jam concerts were built around the children of the 70s, like myself, finding a band that we could relate to musically, accompanied by a pit to get our energy and emotions out that I never understood, but thoroughly enjoyed. The big hair bands of the Eighties hadn’t given us anything to really sink our musical teeth into, so when bands like Pearl Jam came along, many teens and early 20’s music lovers quickly gravitated to the new sounds coming, not only out of Seattle, but also out of Los Angeles bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane’s Addiction and Stone Temple Pilots. The rawer punk-influenced sounds with more sophisticated melodies and lyrics were something completely new and I for one was hooked from the start.
Fast-forward to 2025, and Pearl Jam concerts have become so much more than just the wild free-for-all that they started out as. They have become a place where fans now share their love of the music with their children, and the band shares their love of the fans with the world. Eddie Vedder smiles at the crowd as they all sing along, and his eyes seem to capture each moment. In the early years of the band, it almost seemed as if he looked right through the audience, but now he has the look of someone trying to savor every moment and put them in an album somewhere alongside Mike McCready’s Polaroids.
Night one in Atlanta got off to a hot start with the Dead Pioneers kicking things off. They are a mostly spoken word band that brings the punk aesthetic to their music and lyrics. They are not afraid to address current-day issues they believe in and were invited to open by Jeff Ament, who joined them on stage for Atlanta night two. Led by frontman Gregg Deal, their set lasted approximately 40 minutes and included:
PO$T AMERICAN
My Spirit Animal Ate Your Spirit Animal
Moving Day
Working Class Warfare
Bloodletting Carnival
Tired
Juicy Fruit (Ode to Chief Bromden)
Rage
Pearl Jam took the stage at approximately 8:50, to a very energetic Atlanta crowd, and delivered a solid setlist that consisted of fourteen songs from various nineties albums along with several songs peppered in from the post-Binaural album collection. The only nineties album not represented on night one was No Code, but it was well represented in night two, so the band took care of those fans that are chasing songs. So much of the band’s current culture revolves around merchandise collecting and setlists that these details are not overlooked by Ed and the band when they are making their lists. They make sure that each night is special for the fans and a completely different experience from night to night. Many of their fans travel from city to city, just to hear certain songs and collect the unique merch for each stop along the way.
Night one was heavy on songs from their debut album, Ten, as they played almost their exact setlist from their 1992 Atlanta Lollapalooza set. Except for replacing Why Go with Once, the band performed the same songs that they played 33 years ago, and that included The Who’s Baba O’Riley for an encore, as well. At one point, Ed addressed the crowd, saying, “…we only played six songs (at Lollapalooza). This was one of them,” before the band kicked into Deep. Hearing Once and Deep on the same night was a real treat, and I appreciated that they threw in this nostalgic collection to the setlist. The songs played from Ten were Once, Even Flow, Alive, Jeremy, Porch, and Deep, which is as solid of a group of Pearl Jam songs as any fan could ask for in one night.
Ed seemed to feel right at home with the fans all night, even making trades for jerseys with wine and tambourines. This comes as no surprise, as longtime Pearl Jam producer Brendan O’Brien has his studio, Southern Tracks, in Atlanta, and the band has spent a lot of time recording and performing in the city. They even released their 1994 concert at Atlanta’s Fox Theater in three parts on the 1994 Dissident single, and for many fans, this is where they started chasing bootlegs and import recordings of the band. This “chase” is another aspect of Pearl Jam fandom that is so much fun to dive into and explore, but we don’t have the space to do that topic any justice. The rest of the band seemed to feel at home as well, with Jeff Ament even rocking a retro Mookie Blaylock uniform (even with spandex pants under the shorts), Atlanta Hawks hat, and brightly colored Nike Air Force Ones on his feet. For longtime fans, we all know that this is Jeff’s signature early 90s style, and it felt like it every time he would hop across the stage. Finishing out Jeff’s retro collection was the 1961 Fender Jazz bass that he used on the recording sessions for their second album, Vs. He was reunited with the bass in Hollywood, FL, just days prior, by Chris Osceola and the Hard Rock Café. Hard Rock had owned the bass and displayed it at their New York location for decades, and Jeff had missed it for decades. Seeing the two reunited and on stage was nostalgic, to say the least, and a great story all around.
The highlight of the night for me was the performance of Do The Evolution with the animated video playing on the massive back-screen. The late 90’s collaboration between Eddie Vedder and animator Todd McFarlane (Creator of Spawn – Animated Series) was originally publicly debuted at the August 22, 1998 show in Toronto. That was my last Pearl Jam concert, and if you’ve never heard the bootleg recording of that performance, do yourself a favor and check it out. The tempo of Evolution was much faster, and the intensity was dialed up to HIGH. Hearing and seeing this again was like an old friend dropping in to say hello, and it was a real treat. The video looked much better on the gigantic LED screens than the sheet it was projected onto in ‘98, so the experience was much more vivid and immersive than the first go around. While the band played this song on Atlanta night two as well, the video was only played on night one.
Pearl Jam is a band that honestly has never just been about making specific-sounding music, but has been focused on creating quality music that is true to them as a band and their creative process. Eddie Vedder traded in his signature growls and screams for vocal scoops and bends long ago, but the core music and soul of the band is still the same. All in all it was a great performance by one of the greatest American rock bands of all time, and the crowd savored every minute of it. Today’s Pearl Jam celebrates more the brotherhood that they all share and the love-fest that they have with their fans, than the hard rocking twenty-somethings they were in the nineties. They can still rock as hard as they want, but their diverse catalog allows them to really connect and enjoy performing for their fans, now as much or more than they ever have. As the rocking horse of time continues on, Ed will always create the emotional connection with the audience that their fans crave, and in addition to that, he is ably backed by Stone and Jeff and two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, drummer Matt Cameron.
Pearl Jam’s 25-song setlist for the night was:
Can’t Keep
Nothingman
Given to Fly
Once
Scared of Fear
Wreckage
Even Flow
Unthought Known (Dedicated to Hank Aaron)
Daughter
Dark Matter
In Hiding
Not For You
Won’t Tell
Deep
Jeremy
Severed Hand
Porch
Keep Me in Your Heart (Warren Zevon cover)
Inside Job
Mind Your Manners
Do the Evolution
Spin the Black Circle
Alive
Baba O’Riley (The Who cover)
Indifference.
The Dark Matter Encore Tour continued after the Atlanta dates with a stop in New Orleans on May 3rd and two nights in Nashville, May 6th and May 8th. It will continue on to Raleigh, NC, for two nights and two final nights in Pittsburgh soon after. If you are in one of those cities, it’s worth it to get out and enjoy a good night of “Rockin’ in the Free World”.
All photos credit: Alexander Sink Photography
About The Author
Bobby Caughron 
