Pearl Jam brought their Dark Matter world tour home to Seattle this week, and last night, May 30, frontman Eddie Vedder played an emotional acoustic version of Nine Inch Nails classic Hurt, dedicated to friends the group have lost in their hometown.
Following the group's initial 17-song set, Vedder returned to the stage of the Climate Pledge Arena alone with an acoustic guitar, sat on a stool centre-stage and addressed the crowd.
"You can guess that there's no other guest list as big as the one that we have when we're in Seattle," he began. "San Diego... Chicago... nope, Seattle. And to be honest I wish it were longer. There are certain names that I so deeply wish were on the guest list tonight, but we we lost them too early, and in ways that we could never imagined.
"And damn it if I can't stop thinking about... that's a good thing."
Vedder then proceeded to play a hauntingly beautiful solo acoustic version of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt, as originally recorded for The Downward Spiral, and later recorded in stripped-down form by the late Johnny Cash.
Watch Vedder's performance in fan-filmed footage below:
The gig, the quintet's second in the city on the Dark Matter tour, was broadcast live on Sirius XM's Pearl Jam Radio. Recordings of their North American shows can be purchased here.
The Seattle band will resume their Dark Matter tour in Ireland on June 22, when they play Dublin's Marlay Park, ahead of a show at Manchester's troubled Co-Op Live arena (June 25) and Tottenham Hotspur's trophy-free stadium in London (June 29). Tickets for the band's European tour are available here.
