Pearl Jam capped their four-night, sold-out stand at Philadelphia’s Wachovia Spectrum — the final concerts in the arena before it’s razed — by dressing up in Devo’s famed jumpsuits and “energy dome” hats and launching into the band’s hit “Whip It” Halloween night. Seeing Eddie Vedder and Co. pick up the Ohio band’s robotic dance moves (and whips, of course) might have been treat enough, but fans at the historic show also got one of the longest and most diverse PJ sets in the band’s history.

Get a look at more rockers in Halloween costumes.

The gigantic set list — which, according to Pearl Jam’s official Website, contained 40 songs spread across a main set and two encores — featured the first ever live performance of Vitalogy’s “Bugs” and the first performance of “Not For You” B side “Out of My Mind” since April 1994. Lost Dogs track “Sweet Lew” also made its live debut Saturday.

The band didn’t skimp on hits from its debut, Ten, tracks from all of their albums from Vs. to Backspacer and the non-LP tracks in between. Covers included Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” Mother Love Bone’s “Crown of Thorns” and Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The entire stand was wrapped up with perhaps the band’s best encore, “Yellow Ledbetter.”

Pearl Jam in posters: track the band’s history in their illustrated tour art.

Check out all the set lists for Pearl Jam’s Philly residency at the band’s official site.

Related Stories:

• The Rise of Grunge: Photos of Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden
• Temple of the Dog Reunite at Pearl Jam’s Los Angeles Concert
• Pearl Jam Rule Austin City Limits With Ferocious Closing Set Featuring Ben Harper, Perry Farrell

Photo: Mazur/WireImage
Pearl Jam and Verizon have teamed up to launch a new mobile app that will allow Blackberry Tour users to download three live tracks from each of the remaining shows on the band’s current Backspacer tour, which concludes November 29th in Christchurch, New Zealand (check out the full list of dates below). The app will also offer up wallpaper and more goodies to PJ fans and is the first of its kind for the Blackberry Tour. If you love Pearl Jam, have Verizon and stash a Blackberry Tour in your pocket, text “PJ” to “5509″ to grab the app.

Check out photos of Pearl Jam and more bands at Austin City Limits.

“Pearl Jam is always looking for new and innovative ways to connect their fans with their most valuable asset — the live performance,” the band’s Ten Club manager Tim Bierman said in a press release, adding the app will help the band “expand our mobile bootleg program into new territory.” (more…)

For the last 17 years, the going story on Pearl Jam was that they were a band that prided themselves on a willful disregard for expectations. The bullet-points are so frequently recited they can almost be announced in unison: their repudiation of the music video, their now-legendary tussle with Ticketmaster, their insistence on releasing their records on vinyl a week before they came out on CD. Lately, the group shucked the whole major label system, releasing their latest album, Backspacer, on their own, with exclusive distribution in Target and several small independent outlets. Commercial fallout be damned, Pearl Jam built their reputation on a stubborn insistence to follow their own muse.

All of which only served to make their crowd-pleasing festival-closing set Sunday at Austin City Limits that much more astonishing. Abandoning any impulse to confound or to frustrate, the group instead delivered a jaw-dropping, white-hot two-hour cavalcade of hits, one that served to aggressively reassert their relevance while casting a clean light on their past. It was — by any measure — the best show of the weekend. “We’ve been here three days,” Eddie Vedder said early in the evening, “and in those three days we’ve received many, many gifts. So we’re going to do our best to return the favor.” (Check out video from the band’s set, plus footage of the Dead Weather, above.)

Experience Austin City Limits in our best live photos. (more…)

Photo: Dyson/WireImage
Pearl Jam’s ninth studio album, Backspacer, is on pace to become the band’s first Number One album on Billboard’s Top 200 chart since 1996’s No Code. According to Billboard.biz, Backspacer is expected sell in the 175,000-200,000 range, enough to give Pearl Jam their first Number One in 13 years, but not enough to hit the 279,000 the band’s self-titled album sold in 2006 when it debuted at Number Two (Pearl Jam was beaten out by Tool’s 10,000 Days for the top spot). (more…)