pearl jam binaural tour

By Jon Pareles

Jon Pareles

Roll credits for Basic Teen Romance, plot Number Four. The camera tracks across a suburban landscape toward Little Ms. Rockfan. She’s being courted by two characters, each working his own kind of sensitive-guy behavior.

Out in the parking lot is Prospect Number One, a scruffy, leather-jacketed misfit, shy but stubborn, with a tendency to brood over everything from romance to the World Trade Organization. He mumbles and hangs out with his buddies, embarrassed when he gets too much attention on his own, and he looks a lot like Eddie Vedder.

Prospect Number Two, striding through the cafeteria, could be a clean-cut student-council candidate on the stump: overachieving, glad-handing, eager to please. He’s surprisingly savvy about other people’s feelings, and he can usually mouth the right words. But a touch of smarmy self-interest always seems to lurk just under the surface. He’s a dead ringer for Rob Thomas of Matchbox Twenty. The movie’s pressing question: Who will take Ms. Rockfan to the prom? . . .

Back in the 1990s, Pearl Jam and Matchbox Twenty both won mass audiences with the aura of earnestness they share. They arrived from decidedly different angles. Pearl Jam had pulled together survivors from Seattle underground bands, and they reached the Top Ten almost grudgingly, always worrying about their integrity. Meanwhile, their music spawned so many imitations that it became hard to hear the heartfelt, wayward intensity of the original.

Matchbox Twenty, by contrast, were late-breaking, avidly commercial followers of 1990s folk-rock bands like Counting Crows and Hootie and the Blowfish. Formed in Orlando around longtime band mates Thomas, bassist Brian Yale and drummer Paul Doucette, the group had been together for a matter of months when it made its 1996 debut album, Yourself or Someone Like You , which has now sold more than 10 million copies. Between Matchbox albums, Thomas co-wrote and sang Santana’s blockbuster radio comeback, “Smooth,” and collected a Song of the Year Grammy.

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For all their disparities, Pearl Jam and Matchbox Twenty have ended up behind the same pop curve. Sincere-sounding guys leading guitar-driven bands have been upstaged by other testosteronic life-forms: the ultramacho boors of rap metal and gangsta rap, and the simpering, animatronic pinups of boy bands. They’ve reacted to the new circumstances in diametrically opposed ways.

Pearl Jam sound relieved to be on the sidelines. On Binaural , the band hunkers down in the sonic basement with producer Tchad Blake. A Latin Playboys member who has produced Soul Coughing and Bonnie Raitt, Blake is a proponent of binaural recording, which places two microphones where your ears would be; he’d rather have spontaneity than polish. By contrast, Mad Season by Matchbox Twenty sits up and begs for a chance to grapple with songs, advertisements and engine noise on a Top Forty radio playlist.

Binaural makes no attempt to ingratiate itself. It comes across as part of an extended conversation among the five band members — all of whom participate in songwriting, including new drummer Matt Cameron from Soundgarden — and fans loyal enough to check in for Pearl Jam’s latest musings on love, death and social responsibility. Binaural is a warts-and-all album; it has grabbers, songs that sink in slowly and a few absolute duds (e.g., “Light Years”). Apparently as tired of grunge as everyone except Creed fans, Pearl Jam delve elsewhere: jumpy post-punk and somber meditations, tightly wound folk rock and turbulent, neopsychedelic rockers that sound like they boiled out of jam sessions. The album reflects both Pearl Jam’s longstanding curse of self-importance and a renewed willingness to be experimental or just plain odd. Vedder sings “Soon Forget,” a bouncy parable about materialism, backed by nothing but a ukulele.

Pearl Jam still worry about the meaning of life. “Time to take heed and change direction,” Vedder insists in “Evacuation,” going on to shout the title amid meter shifts composed by Cameron. He howls his disgust with the World Trade Organization in “Grievance” over riffs that keep changing, and he worries about war amid the twining guitar lines of “Insignificance.” Vedder isn’t afraid to sound scratchy, quavery, sleepless, desperate; his voice is plunged into the band, not accompanied by it.

Binaural doesn’t try to be a big statement or any kind of last word, just the latest batch of obsessions from a band that’s still restless. Whether or not Ms. Rockfan hops on for the ride, Pearl Jam are going their own way.

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Matchbox Twenty come on stronger. On their first album, they were nobodies with a gift for folk-rock hooks and songs that veered uncomfortably close to darker impulses, like the not-for-wife-beaters hit “Push.” Now, with a position to protect, the band goes over the top. Every song on Mad Season is a production mini-epic. Thomas sings about loneliness and painful breakups, but amid string orchestras, horn sections, layered guitars, electronic effects and backup vocal chorales, he’s never alone.

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Under the haywire production are crafty songs. Thomas has the pop gift for recombinant larceny: alternating Heart’s “Magic Man” guitar with a Santana undercurrent in “Bent,” grafting late Beatles to Hootie in “Mad Season.” But when the crescendos surge and the keyboards chime, he starts to sound as unctuous as 1970s cheeseballs from Lobo to Jim Croce to the Guess Who’s Burton Cummings. Songs that probably seemed vulnerable as demos have turned greedily narcissistic. Ms. Rockfan might have second thoughts when Thomas belts, “I need you now/Do you think you can cope?”

. . . As prom time approaches, Ms. Rockfan can’t decide between Matchbox Twenty’s relentless entreaties and Pearl Jam’s intriguing diffidence. So she goes with Sisqo, who promises a straightforward good time and no angst. For one thing, he knows how to dance.

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UPDATED: Pearl Jam Goes "Binaural" With New Album, North American Tour

Pearl Jam has announced plans to release its sixth studio album, titled "Binaural," on May 23, the same day the Seattle band is set to launch a 26-date European tour in Lisbon, Portugal.

The group plans to kick off an extensive North American tour in support of "Binaural" on August 3 in Virginia Beach, Virginia, with concerts scheduled through a November 5 homecoming show in Seattle.

arrival of "Binaural" comes less than a year after Pearl Jam earned the biggest-selling single of the group's career, as "Last Kiss," a cover of the 1964 song by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers, has sold more than 785,000 copies -- some 280,000 more than its perennial hit, "Jeremy.

• 8/3 - Virginia Beach, VA
• 8/4 - Charlotte, NC
• 8/7 - Atlanta, GA
• 8/9 - West Palm Beach, FL
• 8/12 - Tampa, FL
• 8/14 - New Orleans, LA
• 8/15 - Memphis, TN
• 8/17 - Nashville, TN
• 8/18 - Indianapolis, IN
• 8/20 - Cincinnati, OH
• 8/21 - Columbus, OH
• 8/23 - New York, NY
• 8/24 - New York, NY
• 8/27 - Albany, NY
• 8/29 - Boston, MA
• 9/1 - Philadelphia, PA
• 9/4 - Washington, DC
• 9/5 - Pittsburgh, PA
• 10/4 - Montreal, QC
• 10/5 - Toronto, ON
• 10/7 - Detroit, MI
• 10/8 - Milwaukee, WI
• 10/9 - Chicago, IL
• 10/11 - St. Louis, MO
• 10/12 - Kansas City, MO
• 10/14 - Houston, TX
• 10/15 - Austin, TX
• 10/17 - Dallas, TX
• 10/18 - Lubbock, TX
• 10/20 - Albuquerque, NM
• 10/21 - Phoenix, AZ
• 10/22 - Las Vegas, NV
• 10/24 - TBA
• 10/25 - San Diego, CA
• 10/28 - San Bernadino, CA
• 10/31 - San Francisco, CA
• 11/3 - Portland, OR
• 11/4 - Boise, ID
• 11/5 - Seattle, WA

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19 Years Ago: Pearl Jam Work Through Their Issues With ‘Binaural’

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Grunge icons Pearl Jam  were in a very tired state around the turn of the millennium. After releasing their fifth album, 1998's  Yield ,  they spent most of their energy touring. Following a brief break, the band reconvened to begin writing and recording what would become their sixth album, Binaural ,  which they released on May 16, 2000.

The LP marked a new era, with two major personnel shifts. Before the Yield tour, then-drummer Jack Irons left the band due to the vigorous touring schedule. Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron filled in for the tour, and the sessions for Binaural  became his first recording gig with Pearl Jam.

Working without their longtime producer Brendan O'Brien for the first time in seven years, the band also brought in Tchad Blake, who helped them explore rich stereo sounds with the experimental technique of binaural recording.

Pearl Jam had a difficult time with writing and recording  Binaural . To start, guitarist Mike McCready left partway through the process to enter rehab for an addiction to prescription medication, and to make matters worse, singer Eddie Vedder found himself mired in writer's block.

Vedder was having a hard time with his vocal parts, both with writing words and developing melodies, so he banned himself from playing guitar in order to focus on writing lyrics. This led him to pick up a ukulele, which he used to write "Soon Forget."

Binaural did not reach the commercial standards set by all of Pearl Jam's previous albums, despite its debut at the No. 2 spot on the Billboard 200 albums chart. It was their first album that didn't go platinum, and it only featured two singles, "Nothing as It Seems" and "Light Years." Like the album as a whole, both tunes are relatively subdued; the latter is full of psychedelic touches, including swirly guitar solos and dense instrumentation.

Following the album's release, the still road-weary band decided to, well, hit the road, touring first in Europe before returning home for a U.S. run.

Toward the end of the band's stint overseas, tragedy struck at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. As Pearl Jam performed, the crowd of around 50,000 people began to crush in on itself. The situation quickly became dire, and security tried to get word to Pearl Jam to stop playing.

Once they heard there was a problem, they stopped playing immediately, and Vedder asked everyone in the crowd to take three steps back. Unfortunately, though, nine fans lost their lives. The tragedy, understandably, had a tremendous effect on the band members. Vedder told Q magazine in 2011 how the incident stuck with them:

If I remember correctly, I think Stone [Gossard] was the one who maybe thought we shouldn’t continue. I think if it was an issue that went right to us, or something we did, or our security or whatever, then that would’ve been harder, I don’t know if we’d have been able to keep going. But there was kind of nothing we could’ve done about it. I’m also grateful to Pete [Townshend] and Roger [Daltrey] and Tom Waits , the people that reached out, cos I was in a fuckin’ fetal position the day after.

Following the tour, Pearl Jam released bootleg recordings of each live show they played on the road. This led to them setting records for the number of album releases that debuted on the Billboard Top 200.

While  Binaural  may never be considered a staple in Pearl Jam's catalog, it is a direct connection between  Yield  and  Riot Act ,  showing the band's constant evolution from album to album. It's a crucial part of their history — one worth revisiting years later.

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Fifteen Years Later, How The Roskilde Tragedy Changed Pearl Jam Forever

Lost nine friends we’ll never know… — Pearl Jam, “Love Boat Captain”

It had been raining. The festival grounds of the Roskilde Festival in the sleepy farm town of Roskilde, Denmark were soaked. At 10:30 p.m. on June 30, 2000, Pearl Jam took the stage, looking out at 50,000 cold and damp fans. Their set would at end a mere 45 minutes later, upon the completion of “Daughter.” In that time, eight people in the crowd had died. A ninth would die five days later .

At the start of the band’s set, a stampede had broken out, crushing people, leaving them trampled on and left to die. Seemingly everyone involved had fingers pointed at them in the days that followed, whether it was the band for inciting the crowd, festival security for failing to control the scene, or even the speaker towers, which people claimed were malfunctioning, causing people to get closer to the stage to be able to hear. But nine people had died; that fact was indisputable. The effects of that night would stay with Pearl Jam for quite a while.

The Roskilde Festival, which had been around since 1971 when it was originally known as the Sound Festival, had long had a reputation as one of Europe’s safest and best music festivals. The festival scene was significantly more European-centric in 2000 than it is today, when U.S. festivals such as Bonnaroo , Governor’s Ball and Coachella (which had just emerged in 1999 as a festival of respectability) dominate the summer concert season. The stink of Woodstock ’99 still hung over the States, and Europe seemed to have things figured out. Roskilde was a beacon of how things should be done. In the years leading up to 2000, it had grown exponentially to the point that organizers had to reduce attendance from 90,000 in 1998 to 70,000 in 2000.

Pearl Jam hit Roskilde in the midst of the European leg of a tour supporting their sixth album, Binaural . They were the last of the big-time Seattle grunge acts standing in 2000. Nirvana was gone. Soundgarden was gone. Alice in Chains was dealing with lead singer Layne Staley’s drug addiction. Closing in on a decade together, Pearl Jam was lucky to still be standing. Their future, however, would forever be altered by the events of June 30, 2000.

In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, the band cancelled their next two shows and ended up spending the month of July in seclusion before returning to the road in August . The band would only break their silence to refute the Danish police’s initial report on the Roskilde deaths, in which the bulk of the blame was placed on Pearl Jam . The police believed that the band encouraged the unruly behavior and ensuing frenzy that led to the stampede, and did so in a way that neither festival organizers nor security could have prepared for. Kelly Curtis, the band’s manager, responded to the report in a statement: “Pearl Jam [is] well known for their exciting live shows, but they have never, in their 10 year history of performing, ‘appealed to violent behavior.'” Pearl Jam called for the investigation to be re-opened, and, as a result, the blame was shifted from the band to festival security, malfunctioning speakers, inclement weather, alcohol, and a lack of seating. No charges were filed against the band, festival security or festival organizers.

After Roskilde, the band took a more proactive stance when playing festivals. Upon playing at Leeds and Reading festivals in 2006, Pearl Jam brought stipulations with them that they required be met. The band would evaluate “all operational and security policies in advance, such as design and configuration of barriers and security response procedures in relation to ensuring… safety.”

This evaluation would include checking out the festival security’s command center, location and effectiveness of said locations of EMTs, barricade types, placement and configuration, how alcohol would be sold, the venue’s capacity and “entry and transition procedures.” Most importantly, the band would be fully aware of a festival’s policy on stopping the show — something that the band felt contributed greatly to the deaths at the Roskilde show. No one from festival security or the organizational side could seem to agree on how long it took to communicate the situation in the mosh pit to the stage, and why it took as long as it did. Pearl Jam maintains that if they had just been made aware of what was happening sooner, lives could have been saved.

But nine lives weren’t saved, and it continued to haunt the band in the years that followed. Vedder admitted to disappearing for a year, although he later struck up correspondence with the families of the victims. Guitarist Stone Gossard felt compelled to return to Denmark in 2003 , where he visited with the families of five of the six Scandinavian victims, including Ebbe and Birgitta Gustafsson, whose son Carl-Johan was lost. Gossard has since grown close with the Gustafssons, introducing them to other members of the band, keeping up with them via Skype and inviting them to shows when Pearl Jam is in the area. Never fans of the band themselves, the Gustafssons now have favorite Pearl Jam songs and enjoy attending the concerts.

Pearl Jam’s next album, 2003’s Riot Act, featured two songs about Roskilde, “I Am Mine,” and “Love Boat Captain.”

The band was unsure how to proceed following the tragedy. If it weren’t for The Who, Pearl Jam might have called it quits. In 2002, The Who had recently lost founding member John Entwistle, and had struggled with deciding whether or not to go on. They faced a similar situation when drummer Keith Moon died in 1978, as well as following their own concert tragedy, in which 11 people died in a stampede during a 1979 show in Cincinnati.

“They kept going,” Vedder said at the time . “Instead of going home, they played on, which enabled them to process it as a group, a family of people, which they are, including the crew. It was healthy for them to process it that way, rather than sit in a corner of a room that doesn’t feel like it’s got a floor to it. I understand the people who criticize them for going on. But, ultimately, it’s their choice, and the fact that they went out and used the music to process it with the fans, I thought it was a courageous option.”

“When we were trying to figure out what to do, the thought was not to react, but to respond. How to make the best of a really screwed-up situation.”

And Pearl Jam made the best of the situation by continuing on. Their 2006 self-titled album saw the band experience a career resurgence that has carried on through today. They haven’t played “Love Boat Captain” in years, but whenever they did, Vedder changed the lyrics to reflect the passage of time. On the 10th anniversary of the Roskilde tragedy, the band faced the haunting memory of June 30 head on while performing in Berlin , roughly 250 miles south of the festival grounds.

“(Roskilde) continues to be the hardest day of our lives,” Vedder said from the stage. “It’s not like we’re thinking about it anymore today because it’s really something we think about every day. We’re extremely grateful for the families we’ve gotten to know through this experience, and somehow gotten through this together.”