Matt Cameron Out With COVID, Josh Klinghoffer, Richard Stuverud Drum for Pearl Jam in Oakland

Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron‘s constructive COVID-19 prognosis didn’t stop the band from soldiering on Thursday night (May possibly 12) at the very first of two reveals at Oakland Arena, as touring member Josh Klinghoffer and longtime Jeff Ament collaborator Richard Stuverud loaded in driving the package throughout the set. It was Cameron’s to start with skipped present due to the fact signing up for Pearl Jam 24 years in the past this thirty day period.

Frontman Eddie Vedder saluted Cameron at the outset of the performance, telling the crowd, “even his superhero status could not reduce him from testing positive. Let us permit the shit hit the admirer and hopefully it’s great shit!”

Pearl Jam opened with a go over of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” for what is thought to be the very first time since it began enjoying the music in 1992. Klinghoffer played drums on that track as very well “Elderly Woman At the rear of the Counter in a Compact City,” “Why Go” and “Corduroy” right before yielding the stool to Stuverud, who thundered his way by means of the Gigaton tracks “Quick Escape” and “Superblood Wolfmoon.”

Vedder relayed a story about popping into an Ament/Stuverud studio session in Seattle in 1994, listening to a track the pair were being operating on and crafting lyrics on the spot for what became “Nothingman.” Stuverud, who has performed on various assignments with Ament since the ’90s, could be found fortunately singing along off the mic as Pearl Jam performed that Vitalogy ballad in Oakland, followed by a raucous get on “Even Stream.”

Earlier in the night, Vedder began the proceedings with solo acoustic addresses of Neil Young’s “The Needle and the Hurt Done” and Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”

(Supplemental reporting by Jeff Vrabel)