Just about every artist who played live last night had to find some way to acknowledge the passing of Prince. For their part, Pearl Jam were playing Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina. During their set, before dedicating the song “Light Years” to Prince, Eddie Vedder had a few words to say about the man. Here’s what he said, according to Alternative Nation:

The shocking news of the day was losing an incredible musician. All of us on this stage can tell you. That guy loved music so damn much. He never stopped playing, never stopped writing, never stopped recording, never stopped creating. He was dripping with songs. They’d go into the shower after he took a shower and there’d be three songs laying there. And of course, I’m talking about Prince. All of us up here were incredible fortunate to see him a number of times over the years.

Some of us got to meet him a bit. He was an intense cat. If there was anyone I thought would be playing when he was 80, 85, it would be him. So today was a real shock. People know him from the ways he looked, and the different ways he looked, and some of the things he said – a lot of different things to remember him by. You just saw some great guitar playing [by Mike McCready]. But Prince was probably the greatest guitar player we’ve ever seen. He was amazing. He will be missed.

And then, during their set-closing rendition of “Yellow Ledbetter,” the band threw in a few instrumental bars of Prince’s “Purple Rain”:

Would anyone object if Pearl Jam just made that a part of “Yellow Ledbetter” from here on out?