After a handful of songs at Ohana Fest on Friday night, the “Eddie Vedder And Friends” set turned into a full-on Pearl Jam performance. (They are still scheduled to headline on Sunday.) It was the band’s first show since drummer Matt Cameron left last summer after 27 years.
Behind the kit for Vedder’s Dana Point fest was Abe Laboriel Jr., the 55-year-old session drummer and member of Paul McCartney’s live band since 2001. He's also toured with Sting, Eric Clapton, and Steve Vai, and he performed on Vedder’s 2022 album Earthling. His dad, Abe Laboriel Sr., is an acclaimed session bassist and founding member of Friendship and Koinonia.
Laboriel previously played live with Vedder when filling in for Chad Smith during Vedder and the Earthlings’ 2023 Ohana set. Notably, Smith filled in for Laboriel when McCartney played Saturday Night Live in May.
Vedder introduced Laboriel as “helping us out on drums tonight” so it was not a formal hiring announcement or anything. It's possible Pearl's new permanent drummer will be someone else on Sunday. but r/pearljam posters had long speculated that he’d be Cameron’s replacement. Rolling Stone's report says "Pearl Jam has unveiled their new drummer."
Pearl Jam's set included covers of Dead Boys and the Who, and the first song with Laboriel on drums was “Corduroy,” the Vitalogy cut and live staple Stereogum once named the band's best song. Watch below.
In other Pearl Jam news, on the occasion of his new photo book Since Forever, bassist and "style innovator" Jeff Ament talked to the New York Times about his hat:
People will always make comments about my hats. There was a block of stores in Cincinnati that sold zoot suits and that stuff. I bought a dark blue and light blue floppy hat. I bought a rainbow-colored one in Philadelphia. Same kind of store, a store selling ’60s and ’70s mostly African-American style. Some of my earliest loves were the Harlem Globetrotters and Fat Albert, so there’s probably some element of borrowing from what I thought was cool as a kid.
UPDATE: Laboriel was back behind the kit on Sunday.
