Why Mike McCready is performing national anthem for Patriots vs. Seahawks originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The NFL is finally back, and as a special treat, the league is gifting us Wednesday night football to kick off the 2026 season. While the rare weeknight game kicking things off for the league is actually thanks to Thursday night’s San Francisco 49ers playing the Los Angeles Rams in Australia, we’ll gladly take the season kicking off a full 24 hours earlier than usual.
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The 2026 season opens with a Super Bowl 60 rematch between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots at Lumen Field. For the national anthem before the game, fans may recognize the man performing it, as the singer is affiliated with an iconic rock band that was formed in Seattle.
Here’s everything you need to know about the Patriots-Seahawks national anthem.
Wednesday night’s national anthem will be performed by guitarist Mike McCready. McCready is one of the founding members of the band Pearl Jam, which started in Seattle in 1990.
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McCready founded the band along with bassist Jeff Ament, fellow guitarist Stone Gossard, and later added Eddie Vedder and drummer Dave Krusen. The band has sold more than 100 million albums worldwide.
“It’s way scary in a way, because I want to do it right and I don’t want to mess it up, so that’s going through my head every time,” McCready said of performing the anthem via the Seahawks. “I’ve done it a bunch of times, I just want to do it how I do it, and hopefully it means something and I do it right, so there’s pressure there.”
But that won’t be the only show that McCready is putting on. At halftime, McCready is also set to perform with another iconic Seattle-based grunge band, Soundgarden. Soundgarden is one of Seattle’s best-known rock bands and was a major part of the city’s grunge movement during the 1990s.
The two bands and their members are close friends, and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron was named Pearl Jam’s drummer to replace Jack Irons in the 1990’s.
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Soundgarden’s Chris Connell also founded the band Temple of the Dog in 1990, which included McCready and Cameron.
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McCready is a songwriter and guitarist. Originally born in Pensacola, Fla., his family moved to Seattle when he was young. In addition to his work with Pearl Jam, McCready has also worked with bands like Flight to Mars, Temple of the Dog, Mad Season and The Rockfords.
He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with the founding members of Pearl Jam in 2017.
While McCready is still with the band, Pearl Jam’s longtime drummer in Cameron announced he was leaving the band in July of last year, two months after Pearl Jam’s Dark Matter Tour ended. Until the band finds a replacement drummer, the band is technically on a hiatus.
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“I think I’m kind of done with the break,” McCready said via American Songwriter in April 2026. “I would love to get out and play again, you know. … I’m ready to go out again whenever, you know, or start working on another record. We’ve just got to find a new drummer, you know? We don’t have one.”
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Although there aren’t too many details about what the show will include, the band is expected to play some of its biggest hits, like “Black Hole Sun,” “Rusty Cage,” “Fell on Black Days” and “Outshined.”
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“I’m kind of like Soundgarden’s biggest fan,” McCready said via Seattle.
“It’s incredibly special, it’s incredibly poignant. It’s intense, you want to do it right,” McCready continued. “It’s Seattle, we want to play as well as we can for Seattle, because we’re from here, this is our home. It’s a big deal, and that’s an exciting pressure to be part of. And I know how good it’s going to sound because of our over-rehearsing. Hopefully people will love it, we’re looking forward to it. I can’t wait. I’ll play with those guys anywhere on the planet.”
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When: Wednesday, Sept. 9
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Where: Lumen Field
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TV channel: NBC
The Soundgarden show will take place during halftime of the Patriots-Seahawks game, which is set to kickoff at 8:20 p.m. ET. A standard NFL halftime is only 13 minutes long, but it could be slightly longer with the show, given that the stage needs to be brought out and off the field.
