The Made in America festival this past weekend in Philly was epic. Jay-Z closed the show opening night, while Pearl Jam closed the show Sunday night.
During Pearl Jam’s performance, Hov himself came out, and they performed Jay’s all-time classic rock-inspired record, “99 Problems.”
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The band’s bassist, Jeff Ament, talked about how the epic collaboration came about. According to Ament, everything happened at the last moment:
“Ed [Vedder] had a conversation with Jay-Z maybe a month ago, so we knew it was a possibility and started doing the work on our end, mashing up one of our songs with one with one of his because groove-wise, we thought it would work. But we didn’t really know until a half hour before the show, when he came back and played it with us, that we were going to do it. And within 30 seconds, we knew it was going to be good. And I think he knew it was going to be good, too.”
Ament also admitted that they had some trouble with the song, and they had to have maps of the live arrangement laid out in front of them:
“Matt [Cameron] absolutely killed it,” Ament says. “[’99 Problems’] sounds like a really simple song, but there are a lot of holes in it and Matt nailed all of those. Someone also showed me a quick two-minute clip of everything afterwards and I was really happy with the lighting, too.”
It’s crazy to hear the process after watching the two iconic forces rock out. If you haven’t seen it, check out the video of them performing “99 Problems” above.
SOURCE: SPIN
