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Eddie Vedder and the Earthlings at The Magnolia

March 3, 2022

Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder debuted his new band The Earthlings at the first weekend of his Ohana Festival in Dana Point, CA September, 2021. Vedder ended the tour Sunday night in El Cajon, CA at The Magnolia. This show was originally scheduled for February 15th and was pushed to the 27th due to band members testing positive for Covid-19. The original closing shows were scheduled for Pearl Jam’s hometown of Seattle Washington. The tour lasted just eight shows throughout February. The Earthlings really are an all-star band with Red Hot Chili Peppers’ drummer Chad Smith, former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist/keyboardist and now Pearl Jam touring guitarist Josh Klinghoffer, Jane’s Addiction bassist Chris Chaney, and one of today top producers and guitarists Andrew Watt (Ozzy Osbourne, Dua Lipa). The opening act was folk artist Glen Hansard who also plays with the Earthlings as a guitarist and pianist. During Hansard’s second song Smith and Watt joined in. The first song of Vedder’s set was a duet with Hansard for “Society,” before the band joined in for the second song “Drive.”

The tour was in support of Earthling which is the name of Vedder’s third and newest solo album which was just released on February 11th and includes a few major guests like Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Heartbreaker’s keyboardist Benmont Tench, Paul McCartney drummer Abe Laboriel Jr, and even Ringo Starr. Watt was the producer of the album as well as playing guitar and bass. This is Vedder’s first solo release in 11 years since “Ukulele Songs.” The Earthlings played a 2.5 hour show consisting of 25 songs. Vedder joked about being a Sunday night and if everyone wanted to stay late. The show also ran over the curfew but Vedder mentioned that he took care of that which was most likely paying a fine.

In total there were eight cover songs between Tom Petty, George Harrison, R.E.M.,Jerry Hannan, The La’s, and Pete Townshend as well as six Pearl Jam songs. The set included the majority of Earthling but not in order. The first three songs were covers and the last three before the encore were Pearl Jam songs. This wasn’t just a night of great music but also Vedder’s stories. One of the funniest was when they were working with Ringo and Watt said “You’re The Best,” to which Ringo replied “Andrew, you’re the best, I’m the greatest.” Vedder did a spot on impression of Ringo. Vedder took a phone from an audience member in the front to delete a photo and in exchange took a selfie with them.

Vedder pointed out a few special people in the audience starting with his mother and two brothers while telling a story about a small string instrument that came from his brother that he uses in the beginning of “Good And Evil.” It was the first and only time the whole tour “Good and Evil” was performed. Throughout this short tour, each song on the album had been performed. For the finale of “Rockin’ in the Free World,” Smith picked up a Gibson Les Paul and Anthony LoGerfo (Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real) took over for drums.

At the end of the show Vedder thanked each band that loaned their members to him for the tour. The Red Hot Chili Peppers have a new album coming and a massive stadium tour and Pearl Jam will finally be able to have their postponed tour for Gigaton. The final story Vedder shared was being in the group Bad Radio pre-Pearl Jam and in 1989 someone involved with the venue did not want them to play there. This led into Smith’s drum solo which was John Bonham influenced and ended with Led Zeppelin’s “Moby Dick.” Vedder brought out Chris Chaney’s wife, voice actress Tifanie Christun, onstage to wish her a happy birthday and blow candles followed by Vedder throwing a cupcake into the audience. Throughout the show Smith threw out a number of drumsticks and Vedder tossed out tambourines and also handed out guitar picks to audience members in the front. After the show Hansard and Klinghoffer greeted fans in the front. For now I would call this a once in a lifetime show seeing Vedder with his A-list band all together in venues 6,000 seats and under. As vedder stated “I've enjoyed every second of it. “We’ve had a great time playing smaller audiences and getting to know our people.”

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