Pearl Jam kicked off their Dark Matter World Tour last Saturday (May 4) at the Rogers Arena in Vancouver, British Columbia. They’re on the road to promote their latest album, Dark Matter. However, that doesn’t mean that Eddie Vedder and the band won’t play the classics on the road. Watch them get the crowd fired up with “Better Man” in the video below.
Videos by American Songwriter
The clip sees the band ripping into the instrumental section of the song. It also shows the massive Vancouver crowd. The area holds nearly 20,000 people and most of the seats seem to be filled. More importantly, everyone in the crowd is having a great time.
[Pearl Jam Dark Matter World Tour: Get Tickets]
Pearl Jam Almost Didn’t Record “Better Man”
Pearl Jam included “Better Man” on their 1994 album Vitalogy but never released it as a single. However, it still became a hit. The song spent eight weeks at the top of the Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart.
The song is about a woman who settles for a subpar man because she doesn’t think she can do better. According to Songfacts, Eddie Vedder wrote the song about his stepfather. After his dad died, his mom remarried and Vedder clearly wasn’t a fan of her husband. He has said that he believes she only married him so she would have help supporting the family. Sometimes, Vedder dedicates the song to “the bastard that married my mother,” showing that his opinion hasn’t changed much over time.
During rehearsals for their sophomore release Vs., producer Brendan O’Brien heard them playing “Better Man” and knew it would be a hit. However, when he shared this opinion with the band, he didn’t get the reaction he expected.
“They all just looked straight down, and the whole room deflated,” O’Brien said of the moment. “I knew I’d said the wrong thing,” he added. “It was a very personal song for Eddie and one of the first songs he’d written. He didn’t want to hear that it was a big smash hit. I learned something very valuable. At that point, I didn’t know Eddie that well,” he recalled.
O’Brien tried to get Pearl Jam to cut “Better Man” for Vs. but failed. He had to wait until the sessions for Vitalogy to talk them into recording what has become one of their best-known songs.
Featured Image by Photo by Mike Coppola/Getty Images
If you purchase through links on our site we may earn an affiliate commission.
