Happy Birthday Jeff Ament: Watch Pearl Jam Perform ‘Yield’ & More In Milwaukee 2014

Today is Pearl Jam founding bassist Jeff Ament’s birthday. Ament was born on March 10, 1963 in Havre, Montana but grew up in the small town of Big Sandy. Jeff picked up the bass as a teenager, playing along to records by The Clash, Ramones and The Police. Ament was also an athlete and attended the University of Montana in Missoula where he studied art and played basketball.

But after the university axed his graphic design program, Ament found his way out to Seattle in a very heady time for music in the Emerald City. Jeff began his foray into the Seattle scene when he joined a band called Green River in 1984. The group also featured future Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard. Green River released their 1987 debut LP, Dry As a Bone, as one of famed Seattle label Sub Pop’s earliest titles and was called “arguably the first grunge band.”

While Green River disbanded, Ament and Gossard continued to pioneer the grunge sound in a new band called Mother Love Bone. Sadly, the group’s frontman Andrew Wood succumbed to a drug overdose. Wood’s roommate, Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell formed a tribute group to the late singer called Temple Of The Dog, which would include more pieces of the PJ puzzle in guitarist Mike McCready and drummer Matt Cameron, who also played for Soundgarden but would later team up with Pearl Jam in 1998. Temple Of The Dog’s debut album also saw contributions on vocals from a Southern California transplant Eddie Vedder.

With all the pieces in place, Pearl Jam was born in 1990. The group would go on to become not just one of the best bands to come out of the grunge scene, but also one of the most critically acclaimed and influential rock bands in recent memory. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.

Three years prior on October 20, 2014, PJ performed at BMO Harris Bradley Center in Milwaukee. While they had just released their album Lightning Bolt a year before, Pearl Jam fit in the first complete performance of their 1998 album, Yield, into the three-hour show which also featured classics like “Courdory,” “Even Flow,” “Jeremy,” “Alive,” “Black,” “Yellow Ledbetter,” and more. Additionally, the concert contained covers of The Who’s Baba O’Riley (which featured guest Rick Nielsen), Neil Young’s “Fuckin’ Up,” The Rolling Stones’ “Paint It Black” (for just the third time, as per Live Footsteps, and coming ahead of “Black”) and also wished Tom Petty a happy birthday before performing “I Won’t Back Down.”

To celebrate Jeff Ament’s birthday, watch Pearl Jam perform Yield in its entirety and more in 2014 via the JamBase Live Video Archive:

[Originally published March 10, 2021]