Pearl Jam will play its first show since longtime drummer Matt Cameron’s final performance with the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers on May 18, 2025, in Pittsburgh, and it will take place on some very familiar grounds. The group is widely expected to introduce a new drummer, whose identity has yet to be confirmed, when it hits the stage at Eddie Vedder’s annual Ohana Festival in Dana Point, Ca., on Sept. 27. Click here for tickets.
The 10th anniversary Ohana lineup at Doheny State Beach will also feature headlining sets from Vedder and unnamed friends on Sept. 25 and Tyler Childers the following night. The undercard boasts Mexican rock legends Maná, Billy Idol, Bad Religion, Courtney Barnett, Bob Mould’s reunited Sugar, Alabama Shakes, Jon Batiste, Men I Trust, Fontaines D.C., Pixies, Rilo Kiley, the Format and Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament’s side band P.E.S.T. Click here for tickets.
Although he informed his Pearl Jam bandmates about his intentions before embarking on a spring 2025 tour in support of the album Dark Matter, Cameron stunned fans when he made the news public last July. The musician spent more than a decade in Soundgarden before joining Pearl Jam in summer 1998 as the replacement for Jack Irons, who exited weeks earlier for a variety of personal reasons.
Cameron’s first show was on May 7, 1998, in Seattle, and barring a handful of COVID-19 related absences in recent years, he was a rock behind the drum kit for Pearl Jam ever since, even while pulling double duty with Soundgarden following its 2010 reunion and during Temple of the Dog’s first-ever tour in late 2016. Soundgarden/Temple vocalist Chris Cornell died by suicide in 2017.
“All of us felt that playing with Matt Cameron was a dream come true,” Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready told SPIN in March. “He’s such a solid force, and we were so lucky to get him when we needed him. Of course, I always worshiped him as a drummer and got to know him and love him as a human being and his whole family. I mean, I’ve known his wife, April, since we were in high school together. I always felt the band was going to be better every year because he was a member. That’s the way I looked at it. I’m looking forward to the future and whatever that may be, but I love Matt and I want him to pursue whatever he wants to pursue and be successful at it. I wish him the best on his journeys.”
Pearl Jam played Ohana for the first time in 2021 once pandemic-era restrictions around concerts began to ease. The group returned to the festival in 2024.
