It’s a festive Eddie Vedder Birthday ever year, as the Pearl Jam lead singer’s birthday falls two days before Christmas.
Holiday season or not, it’s always festive when you’re celebrating one of rock’s most beloved frontmen. And there’s a lot to celebrate, given his prolific Pearl Jam catalog, three solo albums, and various side-projects and one-offs. We took a deep dive into a lot of that with his 28 best songs outside of Pearl Jam, which is worth a scroll-through.
I’ve seen Pearl Jam more than any other band, I think. One of my projects in 2023 is to figure out how many times I’ve seen them and track down all the setlists. This much I do know: April 11, 1994. Pearl Jam played the first of two shows at Boston Garden, just days after the death of Kurt Cobain. I was there, and it was intense.
That was the first of many, many Pearl Jam shows for me. There are a few reasons the band has cultivated such a large and loyal fanbase in their thirty-plus years. Chief among those reasons is their live show. They’re never ones to shy away from working deep cuts and rarities into the setlist. I witnessed this firsthand in 2003: I was in Mansfield for two of the three shows when they played their entire catalog.
An Eddie Vedder Birthday Six-Pack
Through it all, Eddie Vedder has indeed been Steady Eddie. Whether it was knocking a hole in the Garden stage in the ’90s, playing host to a host of on-stage guests in the ’00s, or swigging from his wine bottle in the ’10s, Eddie’s energy has always set the tone for Pearl Jam, both live and on record. I’ve shared a half-dozen of my favorite tracks of his both in and out of the band below. HDB, EV!
