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Denver Fans Walk Out of Pearl Jam Show
The Associated Press
DENVER - Dozens of fans walked out of a Pearl Jam concert after lead singer Eddie Vedder took a mask of President Bush and impaled it on a microphone stand.
Several concertgoers booed and shouted Tuesday night for Vedder to shut up as he told the crowd he was against the war and Bush. He impaled the mask during the encore of the band's opening show of a U.S. tour.
"It was like he decapitated someone in a primal ritual and stuck their head on a stick," fan Keith Zimmerman said.
Vedder used a Bush mask in Australia and Japan to perform the song "Bushleaguer," from the band's latest album, "Riot Act." The song's lyrics say, "He's not a leader, he's a Texas leaguer."
During the show, Vedder said: "Just to clarify... we support the troops."
"We're just confused on how wanting to bring them back safely all of a sudden becomes non-support," he said. "We love them. They're not the ones who make the foreign policy .... Let's hope for the best and speak our opinions."
Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.
The Dixie Chicks were the target of boycotts and bans after their lead singer made anti-Bush statements on a London stage last month.
Bushleaguer
(Gossard/Vedder)
How does he do it? How do they do it? Uncanny and immutable.
This is such a happening tailpipe of a party.
Like sugar, the guests are so refined, (look like melting mice)
A confidence man, but why so beleagued?
He's not a leader, he's a Texas leaguer
Swinging for the fence, got lucky with a strike
Drilling for fear, makes the job simple
Born on third, thinks he got a triple
Blackout weaves its way through the cities
Blackout weaves its way through the cities
Blackout weaves its way,...
I remember when you sang
That song about today
Now it's tomorrow and
Everything has changed
A think tank of aloof multiplication
A nicotine wish and a colossus decanter
Retrenchment and foolishness
"What's the buckos?"
The raves have not a clue
The immenseness of suffering
And the odd negotiation, a rarity
With onionskin plausibility of life,
And a keyboard reaffirmation
Blackout weaves its way through the cities
Blackout weaves its way through the cities
Blackout weaves its way,...
I remember when you sang
That song about today
Now it's tomorrow and
Everything has changed
Eddie Vedder's comments from Pearl Jam concert
April 2, 2003
Before "Do The Evolution":
"I just wanna say one thing before the next song. We know about all what’s going on with the world these days. We all know what’s going on. We know some of what’s going on. We know what they tell us. We know some of what we found out on our own. You got a minute for this? Because it won’t even take that.
I talked with some guy, a guy who flew helicopters in Vietnam. I figured he knows more about this than a lot of people. He was over there. He probably knows more than a lot of our representatives, who were never over there. This guy’s got his shit together to this day. But he’s been thru this experience that he carries with him. I asked him what do you feel about this? He says -- did someone just say "shut up?" (boos). I don’t know if you heard about this thing called Freedom of Speech, man. It’s worth thinking about it, because it’s going away. In the last year of being able to use it, we’re sure as fuck gonna use it, and I’m not gonna apologize. All I wanted to tell you was what this guy passed on to me ? he said it just upsets me. I’ve been there, I’ve seen that, I’ve seen the ugliness, I’ve sent he chaos, I’ve lived with what you have to live with afterward. He just doesn’t feel like we’ve evolved at all in 20 years.
And he mentioned Carl Sagan, who said we’re on the brink of forever, you and me, all of us, this country, this whole world. We’re all on the brink of forever. So we should come together, get this shit happening in a good way, so we can make it on to better days. It’s evolution, baby."
After the song:
Just to clarify - I was afraid with what was said before - we support the troops. (cheers). Our problem is certainly not with anybody over there doing something that not too many of us would do right now, not for these reasons. So to the families and those people who know those folks and are related to those folks and are married to those folks, we send our support.
We’re just confused on how wanting to bring them back safely all of a sudden becomes non-support. We love them, we support them. Our problem, they’re not the ones who make the foreign policy. They’re just doing their job. Let’s hope for the best and speak our opinions."
All right, this song’s off the last record. It’s a quiet one. A scud. A weapon of mass illumination. This song is called Thumbing My Way.
Vedder comes out wearing a Bush mask, which he then puts on a microphone stand like a severed head. At one point he either jabs the mask with the mike stand, or puts it on the floor and stomps on it (trying to clarify).
As a Pearl Jam fan, this is my take - I bet the people who walked out weren't necessarily fans. I've been to Pearl Jam shows, and it's usually like that: somebody brings a friend who doesn't really seem to be digging the show when you look over at them. They're looking at their watch more than they're looking at the stage. If it was a few dozen people, it was probably peoples' dates or whatever.
Real Pearl Jam fans know Eddie and the band's take on Bush, so what he did shouldn't have been a shock. He did the Bush mask thing the last time I saw them in Seattle and no one gave a rat's ass. I have a DVD, "Pearl Jam - Touring Band 2000" where the band does this with both Bush and Gore masks.
Mountains out of molehills...
dlemond
04-04-2003, 01:01 PM
If you are at a Pearl Jam concert, one would think you would know something about them.
Would you go to a U2 concert and be surprised that Bono gave sermons in between songs?
It's no surprise that Eddie Vedder would say those things.
In fact, it almost seems tame for him.
And to come back and clarify and such- that is almost a shocker.
Peal Jam Fight Bush
Band responds to criticism after Bush pillorying
By Augustin Sedgewick and David Fricke
Rolling Stone
No one's bulldozing piles of their CDs, but Pearl Jam have been the subject of a backlash since frontman Eddie Vedder colorfully expressed his disapproval of the war and the Bush administration at the band's U.S. tour opener in Denver earlier this week. During the show's encore, Vedder impaled a mask of the president on his mike stand and riffed on the importance of free speech and dissent, drawing the ire of a handful of fans in the audience and twice as many conservative commentators. Just don't look for Vedder to apologize or tone down his rhetoric as a result.
"We're addressing the Bush administration, not those who are putting their lives on the line," he told Rolling Stone. "They have our support and our love. People try to marginalize anyone with an opinion by saying, 'What do these privileged people know about this?' I'm trying to be as compassionate as I can. I'm not sure how being against the war all of a sudden means I'm not supporting our troops."
Pearl Jam also refuted press reports that some fans booed and walked out of the Pepsi Center during Vedder's invective. "It's possible two dozen left during the encore but it was not noticeable amongst the 11,976 who were loudly applauding and enjoying the evening's music," a new statement from the band reads. "Dissension is nothing we shy away from . . . Ed's talk from the stage centered on the importance of the freedom of speech and the importance of supporting our soldiers as well as an expression of sadness over the public being made to feel as though the two sentiments can't occur simultaneously."
(April 4, 2003)
Pearl Jam Reads Reporter Riot Act
by Josh Grossberg
E! Online
Is Pearl Jam the next Dixie Chicks?
On the defensive for some antiwar remarks at the opening show of their first North American tour in nearly three years, the grunge rockers are rejecting as media hype a report that there was a mass walkout by upset fans after lead singer Eddie Vedder impaled a mask of President Bush on a microphone stand during the encore.
"There were close to 12,000 people at the April 1 Denver show. It's possible two dozen left during the encore, but it was not noticeable amongst the 11,976 who were loudly applauding and enjoying the evening's music," the band said in a statement. "It just made a better headline to report otherwise."
The headline in question stemmed from a story by Scripps Howard News Service reporter Mark Brown, who wrote on Wednesday that dozens of angry fans walked out after Vedder's tirade, complaining that he went too far during his anti-Bush song "Bushleaguer" (the lyrics says the President is "not a leader/he's a Texas leaguer"), which concluded the show.
Brown didn't note that some concertgoers traditionally leave during the encore just to beat the traffic. In its statement, Pearl Jam also points out that Brown never mentioned any incensed fans in his review of the concert for the Rocky Mountain News, entitled "Pearl Jam Show Will Make a Great CD."
The Seattle-based musicians also defends their frontman's right to express himself.
"Dissension is nothing we shy away from--it should just be reported about more accurately," the band says. "Ed's talk from the stage centered on the importance of freedom of speech and the importance of supporting our soldiers as well as an expression of sadness over the public being made to feel as though the two sentiments can't occur simultaneously."
Vedder, who two years ago lobbied for Ralph Nader, first started getting political about midway through the show.
"You got a minute for this?" he asked the audience, before relating a conversation he had with a Vietnam veteran whom Vedder said had strong doubts about the war in Iraq.
After someone in the crowd yelled "Shut up," Vedder tried to be the better man.
"I don't know if you heard about this thing called freedom of speech, man. It's worth thinking about it, because it's going away. In the last year of being able to use it, we're sure as fuck going to use it and I'm not going to apologize," Vedder said to mostly cheers, per Brown's account.
Later in the show, Vedder voiced his support of the troops in Iraq.
"To the families [of soldiers] and those people who know those folks and are related to those folks and are married to those folks, we send our support. We're just confused on how wanting to bring them back safely all of a sudden becomes nonsupport. We love them, we support them. They're not the ones who make the foreign policy...let's hope for the best and speak our opinions."
Pearl Jam concluded its 24-song set with a rousing cover of Neil Young's classic, "Rockin' in the Free World," a pointed criticism of the first President Bush's tenure in the White House.
Brown said Vedder's remarks drew some cheers mixed with boos from the audience, but some thought the singer definitely went overboard.
"When he was sharing his political views in a fairly benign manner supporting our troops, opposing policy that's okay," fan Keith Zimmerman, a Denver native, was quoted as saying in the report. But when Vedder impaled the Bush mask, Zimmerman said, "It was like he decapitated someone in a primal ritual and stuck their head on a stick. It kinda blows away the Dixie Chicks."
The gesture also drew the ire of many on Pearl Jam's official Rumor Pit Website.
"If you hate our country so much. Move to Iraq! You live an incredible life...make millions a year...quit your complaining. . .you guys are worse than the sick people defecating and vomiting in our streets!!! A boycott is starting and this, hopefully, will be bigger than the boycott of the Dixie Chicks," writes one poster.
Another, calling himself ProudYank, says, "You want to publicly deface your president? You want to encourage the Iraqi to fight harder cause you make them think we are soft? Then go live somewhere else! You celebs think we are interested in what you think? ...We don't want your opinions on world peace, save the whales or whatever else you have the luxury to spend the time and money on cause you don't have day jobs like the rest of us. Enjoy your money, shut up and sing, that's why you are here. Or leave. And take the Dixie Chicks, Streisand, Susan Sarandon, Sean Penn and all you other wealthy entertainers who think they need to tell us what to think. Your CDs have just become beer coasters."
Still, the pro-Pearl jam posts have been eclipsing the negative by a roughly 4-to-one margin. "Ed's political opinion is totally right and to all those who hadn't figured it all yet....Pearl Jam and Eddie always talked about politics and human rights, and their music is a political statement of justice and freedom, you can't separate music from your vision of the world," writes one fan. Another puts it more succinctly: "Ed rocks!!!!"
Although Pearl Jam is not nearly as commercially successful as during the grunge glory days, neither the band nor its label, Sony's Epic Records, wants to deal with the backlash--especially after seeing what's happened to another Sony act, the Dixie Chicks.
After singer Natalie Maines said she was ashamed that President hailed from Texas during a concert in London last month, fans called for a boycott and country radio stations across the nation stopped playing the Texas trio's music and record sales have plummeted. Fans in Louisiana even took to burning their CDs in a public bonfire.
Things have apparently gotten so bad that Chick Martie Maguire said the musicians now fears for their safety.
"We've gotten a lot of hate mail, a lot of threatening mail," Maguire told reporters in Australia. "Emily [Robison] had the front gate of her ranch smashed in. We have to have security when we get back to the States. It puts my well-being in jeopardy."
The Chicks kick off their mostly sold-out U.S. tour May 1 in Greenville, South Carolina, where a protest is already planned.
Still, Maines is sticking by her guns.
"The more flak I get for it, the prouder I am," said Maines.
As for Pearl Jam, the band played Oklahoma City Thursday night and is slated to perform in San Antonio on Saturday.
Originally posted by AKA
I have a DVD, "Pearl Jam - Touring Band 2000" where the band does this with both Bush and Gore masks.
I think Eddie has to come up with some new stage material.
;)
Originally posted by TJL
I think Eddie has to come up with some new stage material.
;)
"I just flew in from Baghdad, and boy are my arms scorched."
[Rimshot]
"Thank you, thank you. What a teriffic audience. What about that President Bush? I mean, come on!"
[Rimshot]
"Matt Cameron on rimshots, ladies and gentlemen. Now here's 'Yellow Ledbetter.'"
At the December 8 show, Ed tacked on a seemingly impromptu final verse to the song "Wishlist."
I wish I was a president
I woudln't go to war
I'd communicate and negotiate
Isn't that what presidents are for?
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