Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron missed his first show in 24 years with the band due to a case of COVID. Fortunately local high school student Kai Neukermans was available to fill in.
It all started when Neukermans text his friend Olivia Vedder, daughter of Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder, who he knew from playing the Ohana Music Festival. Neukermans said in an interview with SF Gate that Olivia responded former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist Josh Klinghoffer was filling in for Cameron. Neukermans figured that was that, until the next day when Olivia text him again saying Pearl Jam was taking submissions from drummers to potentially fill in for Cameron.
"I had a statistics test in my next period class, which I'm not doing very well in, but I'm sure they'll let me take it next week," Neukermans said about skipping class to go record a cover. Ultimately, Neukermans got the call and got to play Pearl Jam's 2013 track "Mind Your Manners" to a crowd of over 20,000 people at the Oakland Arena. Sure, the track is only three-ish minutes long, but that's a memory that lasts a lifetime and is a story that gets told about a million times.
"It was surreal, the amount of people that were there," he said. "The arena lit up and everyone was screaming." Neukermans currently plays in a band called The Alive, who is slated to play Bottle Rock at the Napa Valley Expo in Napa, CA later this month. Check that out here.
