The former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist was officially welcomed to the group by frontman Eddie Vedder during the 'Alive' hitmakers' set at the Sea.Hear.Now Festival in New Jersey.
- September 21, 2021
AceShowbiz - Former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer has joined Pearl Jam for the rockers' latest dates.
He joined the "Alive" hitmakers onstage at the Sea.Hear.Now Festival in New Jersey on Saturday morning, September 18 for the band's first gig in three years.
Klinghoffer left the Red Hot Chili Peppers in 2019 when the guitarist he replaced in the band, John Frusciante, returned. Ironically he was scheduled to open for Pearl Jam on their postponed 2020 Gigaton tour.
Frontman Eddie Vedder officially welcomed Josh to the group during the set, telling fans, "A year and a half ago we were ready to play and we were excited to play. We had new songs to play and we were going to start touring quite a bit... It was one of the inside jokes of naming the record, we called it Gigaton, it's a unit of measurement, but you could also say 'gig-a-ton'. We thought we were going to be on the road for quite a bit."
"The opening band was going to be a friend of ours who just put out a great solo record, and we started working with him to also fill out some of the new songs," Vedder went on gushing.
Vedder said Klinghoffer would be "covering all the bases and filling in some of the words."
Pearl Jam kicked off the 20-song set with three new songs in a row, "Dance of the Clairvoyants", "Quick Escape" and "Seven O'Clock". The set also included a tribute to late Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts with a quick run through "Waiting on a Friend" during "Wishlist", and a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "My City of Ruins".
