Eddie Vedder and Friends perform “My City of Ruins” in Asbury Park.
Pearl Jam’s set at the Sea.Hear.Now festival in Asbury Park, Sept. 18, included Bruce Springsteen’s “My City of Ruins” as its first encore. You can watch it below.
Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder played acoustic guitar on the song and sang with four backing vocalists, Alexander Simone, Joshua Rogers, Michelle Rushing and Jayson Rogers.
While introducing the song, he called them “some new friends as of yesterday. I was looking for Asbury’s finest local singers, and then with two hours notice, we got ’em. They’re superheros to me. For example, Jason … was in a classroom, teaching, when he got the word. He ran out of class, put on his cape, and got to the venue. And we were playing within an hour … I probably wouldn’t have played this song without them, but the fact that I get to play it with them means the world to me.”
For more on “My City of Ruins,” click here. Though written about Asbury Park and debuted in concert before 9/11, the song will always be associated with 9/11 because of Springsteen’s performance of it at the “America: A Tribute to Heroes” telethon on Sept. 21, 2001, and because he included it on his The Rising album.
Here is a post I did last year on the connections between Springsteen, Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, with 22 videos.
Sea.Hear.Now continues on Sept. 19, with Smashing Pumpkins, Billy Idols, Dirty Heads, Ani DiFranco and Remember Jones among the performers. Visit seahearnowfestival.com.
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