Pearl Jam: The drummers poll

xp ahh, damn you Billboard - never mind then.

i think two stories are being conflated.
there were 2 shows in oakland, last night (fri) and night before (thurs) two separate ring-ins & one of them was named josh

1st night/Thursday: a guy named Josh Arroyo was picked out of the crowd & played Yellow Ledbetter in the encore. He was 30’sish ie not a kid. But they literally plucked him out of the crowd after he begged to be put in. (Apparently in real life he is a drumtech for Ben Harper & Jack Johnson)

2nd night/Friday: high school kid named Kai sat in on Mind Your Manners halfway through the show. Ed had seen his band The Alive & called & asked Kai to play with them.

ah ha, that makes sense.

The band’s ridiculous animosity towards Abbruzzese is insane. They pushed him out for doing all the press that Epic was requesting and splurging on a sportscar. He was lucky in that he ended up with co-writes on every VS. song and didn’t get stuck with the Ticketmaster lawsuit legal bills.

Irons is an interesting songwriter and a great drummer, but he never totally gelled with them