Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready Names His Favorite Songs to Play Live

During a recent interview, Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready named his favorite songs to play live, and also explained how he keeps their old material fresh and exciting after all these years.

The Seattle rockers have been a touring machine over the last few decades, and yet some of McCready’s favorite songs to perform are from the band’s very first album Ten, which came out in 1991.

“I love playing ‘Black,’ I love playing ‘Even Flow’ because I get to show off. My part in the set is to do the solos in that, and I get to experiment every night on those. That’s exciting for me so I don’t do the same thing every night. Those old ones are fun,” McCready said during an appearance on New Zealand’s The Rock.

According to Setlist.fm, “Even Flow” is Pearl Jam’s No. 1 most-played song live, having been done a total of 937 times between 1990 and 2024. “Black” comes in at No. 5 on their most-played tracks, with a total of 626 plays. This goes to show that some artists do still love playing their biggest hits 30 years later.

There are a couple of newer ones the guitarist is fond of too, particularly from their 2024 album Dark Matter.

“Playing the song ‘Dark Matter’ now is really fun,” he noted. “That’s a great rocker live. ‘Waiting for Stevie’ is a fun one to play. There’s a myriad of them, but those are the top ones off my head… First and last record!”

Pearl Jam have tackled “Dark Matter” live 29 times now, and “Waiting for Stevie” 16 times. It’ll be interesting to see how both hold up in their setlists over time.

Later in the conversation, McCready described the feeling he gets when he plays solos in songs such as “Black” and “Even Flow,” and why they’re so special to him.

“When I have my head in the sky and I’m looking up and not thinking about anything and I’m just feeling everything, that’s when it’s the best. That happens in ‘Even Flow’ and in ‘Black,’” he noted, adding that trying to force that feeling makes it become too “technical” for him.

“It’s gotta come from your soul or from somewhere outside of me. And for lack of a better term, I think I channel it sometimes, but I can’t force that to happen.”

Watch the full conversation below.