News: Mike Talks About The Gorge Boxset

1. What is it about the Gorge that makes for such special shows for the band?
The Gorge is the most beautiful place I have ever played. You have the backdrop of the Columbia River with the sunset and all of its colors, in addition to having a bunch of fans sitting in a hill to watch the show that was cut out to create the venue. It has an incredible spiritual vibe to it - a feeling of happiness and elation comes over the band because we are basically playing to our home in this beautiful setting.

2. Why did you decide to release these shows out of all the 2005-06 tour dates?
We felt that these were above par shows -- kind of book ends to our U.S./Canadian/world tours from 2005 and 2006.

3. What are some of your stand out moments from these shows?
My friend Chris Adams who I met through the CCFA wrote the set list for the Saturday night show in 2006, upon Ed's request. This will probably never happen again and it turned out to be an awesome set list.Another highlight from the 2006 show was that I had brought my family along and we got to go swimming in the Columbia River on Sunday afternoon before the show and I actually got to meet some fans that where trying to cool off too.A highlight from the 2005 show was shooting footage with the guys for the 'Life Wasted' video around the Gorge.

4. Pearl Jam has led the way in making their live shows available to fans since the introduction of the official bootleg program in 2000. The bootleg program went digital in 2005, but you have made an exception with this box set. Does this mark a new approach in making your live shows available to the fans?
We are always thinking about new ways to make our music available to our fans and fans of live music. Our main goal is to always keep our fans happy and excited about our music, to help them maintain their experience of the live shows.