“Bands like Pearl Jam receive no part of the service charges collected by Ticketmaster. And let us make it quite clear that Pearl Jam seeks no portion of those service charges. As a result, a band like Pearl Jam, which is concerned about keeping the price of its tickets low, almost by necessity finds itself on the opposite side of Ticketmaster, which has every economic incentive to raise the price of the tickets it sells.”

- Prepared statement of Pearl Jam before the Information, Justice, Transportation and Agriculture Subcommittee of the House Committee on Government Operations, June 30, 1994.

On March 16, 1992, Pearl Jam crammed the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York for a taping of MTV’s Unplugged series. Forced to rent their instruments because of scheduling issues, and planted uncharacteristically to stools in the small, dimly lit studio, Pearl Jam appeared restless yet relenting, churning out a majority of their slow burning debut album, Ten. Just back from a month long string of dates in Europe, the band was reintroducing itself to America after major stations had picked up “Alive”, a ballad laced with incest, death, daddy issues, and guitar solos. With no real formula yet tied to the otherwise commercially unpopular Pearl Jam, the song’s heavy rotation on major radio stations seemed more nostalgiac than groundbreaking. Hearkening back to the days of Mountain and Kiss, Pearl Jam esteemed themselves through the 70’s arena rock niche, however unhappily, and by the end of 1992 after taking a break between legs, had gone from shows averaging 1500 people in attendance, to a supporting tour with Lollapalooza, averaging 20,000 per show.

The MTV Unplugged show is important for several reasons. First and foremost, it marked a sea change for the band. The show, which had grown in audience by taking notable pop icons and stripping down their sound had spent much of its time regurgitating classic and contemporary rock figures, such as Paul McCartney, the Allman Brothers, and Eric Clapton. In fact, out of the 10 episodes featured in season 3, Pearl Jam was the youngest group with possibly the least amount of material. Suddenly, and almost subtextually, the band had been paired with its peers as a viable, confident startup, almost in the way Google aligned itself in competition with Microsoft long before it became a household name.

At the same time America was meeting Pearl Jam the group, they were having a difficult time ignoring Eddie Vedder, the short, mouse-eared singer whose baritone and on stage temper had captivated many during the band’s initial leg of the Ten tour. Known for scaling rafters and ambitious crowd surfing, Vedder had become a paradox. At once obsessed with providing fans the ultimate experience at Pearl Jam’s live shows, Vedder spent a good portion early on in his career decrying media populists; those celebrities determined to shed their natural skin publicly in order to cash in on fame and fortune. The American Dream to most would eventually become Vedder’s American Nightmare, and after famously scrawling “PRO-CHOICE” in black Sharpee marker across his naked forearm on MTV’s Unplugged for a nation to witness, Vedder’s once dormant celebrity twitched violently to life.

The third and possibly most important piece of the MTV performance is that instead of setting a trend or drawing the band’s thesis, it exemplified everything the band would not become. The period between Unplugged and the second leg of the band’s tour supporting Ten was just two weeks, and though afforded no real downtime after 10 months of straight touring, Pearl Jam’s material began to flesh itself out into a darker, harder sound. Tempos were driven almost twice as fast, and fans were treated to reworkings of old songs, new songs written on the road, and a smattering of covers. Where glam outfits and, at times, props had sprinkled their sets, they now dressed down for the road. T shirts. Shorts. Converse. Suddenly, Pearl Jam was an icon of grunge, riding the flannel shirt that wrapped around America’s collective waist, almost unknowingly, to the top of the charts.

Just a year after reaching the height of their popularity, Pearl Jam released its second album, Vs. Helmed by up and coming producer Brendan O’Brien, the record avoided the glitz of its predecessor. There was no reverb to be found on Vedders bark. The solos had a signature to them unlike the previous record, which held fast to the likes of Steve Ray Vaughn and Jimi Hendrix. The percussion was a focus, as hip hop and funk reared their influence in Stone Gossard’s methodical riffs and Dave Abruzzese’s shock drumming. Here was something entirely different and still, Vs. sold 950,378 copies the first week it was on the shelf.

Pearl Jam found itself in the middle of everything. Time Magazine placed Vedder (unwillingly) on the cover as the voice of Generation X. Fashion magazines pointed youths to $100 corduroy jackets, like the one Vedder wore in photo shoots and videos. Promoters were knocking for the next tour. But Pearl Jam had decided to scale back.

Battling convention, the band stayed their own course, developing a tour with minimal promotion, dedicating itself to two American tours determined by coast. Throughout 1993 and into 1994, the band played to thousands, and continued its dominance of the Billboard 200. In the few interviews allowed, the band stomped on their own success, and tried their very hardest to remain independent of the media. There were no more music videos. Merchandise was minimal and sold through the band’s fan club, the Ten Club. Fans were treated to floor seating before the general public. Vedder even answered the mail at first, until it became too overwhelming.

In early 1994, the members of Pearl Jam expressed outrage at Ticketmaster’s service charges on top of their own established ticket prices. The band, which prided itself early on as advocates of fair-pricing for tickets (typically 18 dollars a ticket), was forced to move to larger venues as a direct result of their newfound fame. Through this change in venues, Pearl Jam quickly learned Ticketmaster had situated itself as the only national vendor capable of handling such a tour, taking advantage of a band with low ticket costs by adding hefty surcharges, which ranged from $3.75 to $15.00. Angered by the apparent price gouging, the band took their fight to Washington, DC, and began the long battle upward.

The band’s popularity and its own agenda had met at an unfortunate intersect. The Ticketmaster fight, Cobain’s parallel suicide, and the cancellation of Pearl Jam’s summer tour left much in the air. The Vedder paradox continued; avoiding the public eye had become thesis, but here he was heading into public battle with the biggest ticketing agency in America. He admittedly shied away from cameras, but there he was again, on every magazine cover in the music rack. The proud crowd pleaser had canceled his concerts. The punk rocker had sold millions of records. The mouse ears were now hidden by a lion’s mane.

The implosion had begun.

Last 5 posts by James V. Mitchell

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