In a recent interview with SPIN, Stone Gossard revealed why Pearl Jam have been playing shorter sets since 2021.
Jonathan Cohen: When Pearl Jam finally played again in 2021 after a three-year break, the shows were comparatively shorter than the three-hour-plus marathons from before the pandemic. Does that help the band stay fresh and not burn itself out?
Stone Gossard: Well, everyone’s almost 60 years old. So if you want us to keep doing this, we can’t do it the same way we did over the last 10 years or so. The length is gonna be a little bit shorter in general, but there will still be a lot of variety and we’re still going to take chances. We just might do that in different ways. We’ve been so fortunate that our fans have been so open to our whims and experimentations, even if sometimes they wish we’d play ‘Jeremy’ and instead we play a B-side not very well (laughs). They’ve grown to understand and even appreciate that. It’s not going to be a marathon every night, because we just can’t do that. Ed and Matt in particular are physically doing so much on stage.
Source: spin.com/2024/03/spin-interview-stone-gossard
Born in Reggio Emilia in 1980. He created pearljamonline.it in 2001 and wrote the first edition of “Pearl Jam Evolution” in 2009 along with his wife Daria. Since 2022, he is behind 2 podcasts: “Pearl Jam dalla A alla Z” and “Fuori Orario Not Another Podcast”. He has collaborated with Barracuda Style, HvsR, Rolling Stone, Rockol and Il Fatto Quotidiano. He continues relentlessly to try to find “beautiful melodies that say terrible things”.
Favorite song: Present Tense
Favorite album: No Code
Favorite bands/artists other than PJ: Tom Waits, Soundgarden, Ramones, Bruce Springsteen, IDLES, Fontaines D.C., The Murder Capital, Mark Lanegan, Cat Power, R.E.M.