Pearl Jam Cover Eagles of Death Metal in Brazil

Pearl Jam is currently in the midst of their South American tour, where each night the band’s set lists have featured a heavy dose of covers by artists like the Beatles, John Lennon, Pink Floyd and now, to mark the one-week anniversary of the Paris terror attacks, Eagles of Death Metal. “We’ve never played this,” Eddie Vedder told the crowd Friday night at Belo Horizonte, Brazil’s Estadio de Maracana right before Pearl Jam launched into the Eagles of Death Metal’s “I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News),” Alternative Nation reports.

It was the first time Pearl Jam had covered the Death By Sexy track. Eagles of Death Metal were onstage at Paris’ Bataclan venue at the time of the terror attack; although no members of the band were hurt, their merchandise manager Nick Alexander was killed.

Pearl Jam does have a connection with Eagles of Death Metal: EODM member Josh Homme’s Queens of the Stone Age performed at Pearl Jam’s PJ20 anniversary bash, and more recently, Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron teamed with QOTSA collaborator Alan Johannes to form Ten Commandos. A 2012 Christmas single from Pearl Jam also featured Homme joining the band on “In the Moonlight.”

Throughout the Belo Horizonte concert, Vedder spoke in a stilted Portuguese to the audience, even referencing the recent Bento Rodrigues dam disaster that caused six deaths and flooded an entire village. The disaster also caused iron ore to seep into the nearby Rio Doce, contaminating the main water supply of millions of people, including Belo Horizonte.

In addition to the Eagles of Death Metal cover, Pearl Jam also played the Beatles’ “Rain,” John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” another new addition to Pearl Jam’s ever-growing catalog of covers. Watch video of “I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News)” below.