News – July/December 2009

June 22: Dublin, Ireland (02 Arena)
June 23: Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK (Odyssey Arena)
June 25: London, UK (Hard Rock Calling @ Hyde Park)
June 27: Nijmegen, Holland (Rockin’ Park)
June 30: Berlin, Germany (Wuhlheide)
July 1: Gdynia, Poland (Open’er Festival)
July 3: Arras, France (Main Square Festival)
July 4: Werchter, Belgium (Rock Werchter Festival)
July 6: TBD (to be decided)
July 9: Bilbao, Spain (Bilbao BBK Live)
July 10: Oeiras, Portugal (Optimus Alive Festival)

Beginning Wednesday, 9-December at 9 AM US-Pacific time, there will be a Ten Club pre-sale only for the following shows: Dublin, Belfast, London and Berlin (remember: you must be an active member as of December 4, 2009 to qualify for the pre-sale.) More info here. As for public on-sale information and vendors, keep an eye on this page: http://www.pearljam.com/tour

Ed Vedder honors Bruce Springsteen ~ On December 6, Ed Vedder attended the 32nd Annual Kennedy Center Honors in Washington DC, a high-profile ceremony honoring some great American representatives from the world of art and culture. This year one of the five honorees was Bruce Springsteen and his colleagues and friends Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper, John Mellencamp, Sting and Melissa Etheridge all performed to celebrate him at the usual gala held at the Kennedy Center Opera House in front of the winners and the President of the United States. Eddie played an acoustic version of “My City of Ruins” by Springsteen, accompanied by a gospel choir. The ceremony will be broadcast on TV by CBS December 29, 2009. At this link, several photos of the gala.

“The Fixer” nominated for a Grammy ~ Pearl Jam have been nominated for a Grammy Award in the “Best Rock Song” category for “The Fixer”. The 52nd Annual Grammy Awards will take place in Los Angeles on January 31, 2010.

Austin City Limits video online ~ Here you can watch Pearl Jam’s performance at the Austin City Limits TV show as broadcast by PBS on November 21.

Euro 2009 boots ~ A couple of weeks ago, the official bootlegs of the five concerts that Pearl Jam held in Europe last August have been made available for sale on Pearl Jam’s official store. You can buy them both in physical format (CD) and as digital downloads (MP3 or FLAC).

Singolo “Got Some/Just Breathe” in vendita ~ The new single “Got Some/Just Breathe”, out November 30 in the UK, is already available for pre-order on HMV (7”vinyl and CD).

“The People Speak” ~ The soundtrack for the documentary “The People Speak” will be released on December 8, 2009, in conjunction with the December 13 broadcast of the film set to premiere on History Channel (click here to watch the TV trailer). Ed Vedder is featured with his own cover of “Masters of War” by Bob Dylan. (Credits: TFT).

“Grunge” by Michael Lavine ~ A new photo book entitled “Grunge” (with photos by Michael Lavine and text by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore) has just been published. The Seattle Times describes it as “a look at the punk scene on the streets and in the clubs of Seattle that gave rise to Nirvana, Mudhoney, Pearl Jam and more”. Click here for a preview of the book.

Pearl Jam against Guantanamo ~ Pearl Jam, along with other musicians such as REM, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Steve Earle and many others, have joined the National Campaign to Close Guantanamo (led by retired Generals Robert Gard, John Johns, former member of Congress, Tom Andrews, and Vote Vets Chairman and Iraq War veteran, Jon Soltz) to put pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama asking for the closure of the detainment camp located inside the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The musicians involved in this campaign also launched a formal protest of the use of music used in conjunction with torture that took place at the prison and other facilities and announced they would seek the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to how music was utilized as an interrogation device.

Here’s an official note released by Pearl Jam: “As Americans, many of us were alarmed and ashamed to learn what happened at Guantanamo in our names. For musicians, it’s been made even more personal given that music was used as a sort of soundtrack for the torture that went on there. While we don’t believe our music was used in this way, we lend our voices in support of the musicians, Generals and American citizens who are calling for the closure of Guantanamo with the hope that it signals to the world a renewed commitment to a humane America.”

News from Mike McCready ~ According to a recent interview with Mike McCready on Musikexpress, a German music magazine, Pearl Jam could take a sabbatical in 2010, while Ed Vedder could embark on another solo tour that will finally touch Europe, too. McCready hints that 2010 could also be the year for the long-awaited Soundgarden reunion. At the time these stories were neither confirmed nor denied by any official organ of the Seattle band.

New single: “Got Some/Just Breathe ” ~ The second single taken from “Backspacer” has been announced: “Got Some”, accompanied by “Just Breathe”. It will be released in November on CD and vinyl 7”.

“The Fixer” live @ ACL ~ Waiting for November 21, when U.S. Tv channel PBS will air the performance recorded by Pearl Jam for the “Austin City Limits” Tv series, here is a brief interview with Jeff and Matt followed by a video of “The Fixer” taken from the program:

Pearl Jam Evolution: a new book about Pearl Jam ~ We are proud to announce the imminent publication of the book “Pearl Jam Evolution”, a Pearl Jam biography curated by the webmasters of this site and edited by Chinaski Edizioni, an Italian indie publishing house. The book will be published in Italy in the coming weeks and is printed entirely on recycled paper. A special about this publication is available here (italian only – currently there are no plans for an English edition of the book).

Radio Takeover ~ Pearl Jam produced an exclusive one-hour radio special called “Pearl Jam Radio Takeover” (link), aired by several American radio stations a few days ago, benefiting “Feeding America” and featuring interviews with band members and previously unreleased live versions of “The Fixer” and “Got Some”.

New collaborations for Vedder ~ Eddie Vedder appears on Jack Johnson’s new live CD, “En Concert”, due out at the end of the month and featuring “Constellations” from the duo’s performance at the Bonnaroo festival on June 14, 2008. Also, the lead singer of Pearl Jam appears on the compilation “15 Geburtstags – Lieder”, attached to the October issue of the German edition of Rolling Stone, with a small piece of less than thirty seconds titled “Keynote”, to celebrate the 15th birthday of the music magazine.

Backspacer #1 in USA ~ A rumor that has been circulating for a few days is now confirmed: “Backspacer” has officially debuted at No. 1 on the prestigious Billboard 200 chart, selling 189,000 copies. The band last graced the No. 1 slot way back in 1996, when “No Code” became its third chart-topper when it debuted in the penthouse. Since “No Code,” the group has notched three No. 2 albums (“Yield,” “Binaural” and “Pearl Jam”) and a No. 5 set with “Riot Act” in 2002. In Italy, “Backspacer” debuted at No.4 on the F.I.M.I/ Nielsen chart in the week from 09.14.2009 to 09.20.2009.

New release in 2010? ~ According to some recent interviews, Pearl Jam could be soon entering the studio to work on new material. Last July, Mike McCready raised the possibility that Pearl Jam would release an EP within six months. Now, interviewed by MTV, he said: “We still have other songs that are out there that are from this session that we may do something with in about six months”. In another interview with Dutch music magazine OOR, Jeff Ament said that he was hopeful that they will enter the studio again early next year to do some final recording/mixing on those tracks aiming at an new release within a year (thanks to Red Mosquito).

Austin City Limits broadcast ~ As already known, Pearl Jam will tape an episode of the Austin City Limits TV show on October 3 (the day before their scheduled performance at the eponymous festival). It has now been confirmedthat Pearl Jam boys’ taping will be broadcast on November 21st by US channel PBS.

O2 Arena radio broadcast ~ Straight from TFT: Digital radio station Absolute Classic Rock has been given the exclusive worldwide rights to broadcast Pearl Jam’s August gig at the O2 arena in London. The show will be played in full on the station this Friday (October 2) from 7pm (UK time). To learn how to listen to Absolute Classic Rock on your computer, click here.

Backspacer on Rock Band ~ The band’s new studio album, “Backspacer”, has been added to the Rock Band Music Store for Xbox 360 on September 20 (for Wii on September 22 and for PlayStation 3 on September 24). For the first time ever, a full album has been made available as downloadable content on the same day of its general release (more info). In addition, Pearl Jam is offering a special edition CD set at Target that includes the Backspacer album disc and a code that enables owners of the special edition to download the entire album for Rock Band or Rock Band 2 gameplay for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

BBC radio session ~ A few days ago, BBC Radio 1 aired an interview that DJ Zane Lowe made with the whole band the day after their concert in London on August 18. The band played three songs during the program: “The Fixer”, “Got Some” and “The End”. The session is available for streaming here (starting at 1:03.10).

Spin ~ Spin magazine announced a Pearl Jam cover story in their October issue, with three different covers:

1.  2.  3.

1. U.S. newstand version
2. subscriber only version (illustration by Tom Tomorrow)
3. special Limited Edition version featuring a 12 page portfolio of classic photographs from Pearl Jam sessions and live concerts, as well as rare behind-the-scenes moments. This one is sold only online and it is now available for sale to international readers, too (click here). Every issue also includes a special pull-out poster of the Tom Tomorrow illustration. A transcript of the wonderful article inside is already available in our Interviews section.

Also, Paste Magazine recently launched a special Pearl Jam Takeover with lots of articles and reportages about the band, featuring an interview with Brendan O’ Brien, a trivia quiz and much more.

2009 Bootlegs Available ~ While today “Backspacer”, Pearl Jam’ s ninth studio album, is available in music stores in Europe (* UPDATE * now it is also available on the band’s MySpace for free streaming), here’s some news that many fans were waiting for: PearlJam.com has announced that MP3 ($9.99, @256kbps files), FLAC ($14.99, lossless) and CDs ($16.98) are now available for Calgary, Toronto, Chicago 1, Chicago 2 and San Francisco. Europe shows and the rest of the U.S. Tour will follow. Click here.

Backspacer T-shirt ~ Pearl Jam and Target have partnered with eco-friendly clothing designer, Loomstate, to create a limited-edition Pearl Jam Backspacer t-shirt to be sold in select Target stores in the USA beginning Sunday, September 20th. All proceeds benefit Feeding America, USA’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity. The limited-edition shirts were made in the USA and are 100% organic cotton. The front of the t-shirt features Backspacer artwork from renowned cartoonist Tom Tomorrow. In addition to the t-shirt partnership, Pearl Jam will donate $1 per paid ticket from their two hometown shows to Feeding America affiliate, Food Lifeline. Target will match this donation (source).

* UPDATE * Here’s the Target commercial featuring “The Fixer”:

The Fixer game ~ Pearl Jam has been playing a game with fans in the lead-up its Seattle shows next Monday and Tuesday. The prize: free limited-edition vinyl 45 records of “The Fixer”. Over the last couple days, the band’s publicity staff has been hiding the vinyl records at various locations around Seattle and Washington, tweeting a picture and daring fans to figure out where they’re located and take them home. This one was at Easy Street Records. This one was in Yakima (source: Seattle P-I). More vinyls are now being scattered in different US indie music stores. Easy Street Records also announced a cool “Backspacer Bash” and Midnight Sale at their West Seattle store on September 19.

Berlin and London Braodcasts ~ TwoFeetThick folks report that Irish independent radio station Phantom 105.9 will be broadcasting Pearl Jam Shepherd’s Bush Empire concert on Friday September 18th at 9 pm (local time). Also on Friday Sept. 18th, Germany’s Delta radio will stream Pearl Jam’s August 15th performance in Berlin the same concert. The broadcast will start on 8:40 pm German CET; live stream will be here.

Philadelphia openers almost official ~ Social Distortion and Bad Religion are going to be the opening bands for Pearl Jam’s four concerts at the Spectrum in Philadelphia (they will be the last band to play there before the building is torn down), according to what Philadelphia rock station WMMR has listed on its website:

October 27 – Social Distortion
October 28 – Social Distortion
October 30 – Bad Religion
October 31 – Bad Religion

Over the last few days, Pearl Jam’s MySpace page and YouTube channel have been streaming a cool promotional video, directed by Danny Clinch, documenting the making of “Backspacer”. All band members are interviewed and you can also catch the band rehearsing”Got Some”, “Just Breathe” and “The Fixer” in studio * UPDATE * (08.25.09) This promo video is now also available on iTunesas a free download for a limited time (US iTunes store only).

An official video for “The Fixer” also begun ciruclating yesterday. Directed by Cameron Crowe, it was filmed last May at the Showbox in Seattle. * UPDATE * (08.25.09) “The Fixer” music video is now also available on iTunes as a free download for a limited time (US iTunes store only).

Easy Street Records issued a pre-sale announcement revealing that the version of “Backspacer” sold by the 10 Club and by US indie distributors will have a special packaging… including a glow-in-the-dark spot cover!

The Ten Club has announced that Stone Gossard and his Hank Khoir will play at Teatro ZinZanni in Seattle on September 16 (info here).

In conclusion, during Pearl Jam’s recent European tour, Pearl Jam OnLine staff met Mike McCready, who has told us that the band hopes to return to Italy soon, after having tested the new songs during their upcoming U.S. tour. However, Mike has not said when exactly the band plans to return to the old continent.

Pearl Jam has added some dates onto their North American tour, the following ones:

25 September Vancouver, BC GM Place
26 September Portland, OR Amphitheater
28 September Salt Lake, UT E Center
27 October Philadelphia, PA Spectrum Arena
31 October Philadelphia, PA Spectrum Arena

Details on ticket sales are available here.

The band’s website has also announced that www.pearljam.com will be the exclusive distributor for live bootleg recordings from their upcoming tour in support of their 9th studio album “Backspacer”. Shows will be available in three formats- MP3, flac and Burn-on-Demand Compact Discs. Unfotunately, not all shows will be available, although it is still unknown which ones will be excluded.

TwoFeetThick has discovered that Mike McCready appears in the video of “Red Ballon” (link), a song written by 24-year-old Zoe Lauren Bruno about living with Chron’s, a disease that struck the young girl. Pearl Jam’s guitarist has been suffering from it for years.

Pearl Jam Online’s staff is back on the road! We’re following Pearl Jam in their four-date European tour (13-18 August) in Rotterdam, Berlin, Manchester and London. This site won’t be updated until the end of the tour, but our forum (concert section: ‘Rise! Life is in motion‘) will provide you updates on the shows posted by users, with live setlists, photos, videos and more. Also, please keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter pages: we will try to send updates from the concert venues. See you on the road… keep on rockin ‘!

For the past few days Pearl Jam’s website has been hosting a little viral game, a treasure hunt style competition set up by Pearl Jam’s crew, which consists of nine individual images scattered across various Internet sites (like rollingstone.com or twofeetthick.com – to find the others we suggest you to use Google). The images are placed on a grid on this page after clicking on them, revealing the final cover art for the band’s new album. As already mentioned before, the artwork was created by cartoonist Tom Tomorrow. After completing the collage, you receive a free download of a demo of album track “Speed of Sound”, performed by Vedder alone. If you are unable to complete the game, you can see the artwork for “Backspacer” in its entirety by clicking here. You can also take a look at Pearl Jam OnLine’s forum for the mp3.

Yesterday, the Ten Club has announced a tour of Australia and New Zealand which will be held in November and includes the following dates:

14 November, 2009 – Members Equity Stadium, Perth, Australia
17 November, 2009 – Adelaide Oval, Adelaide, Australia
20 November, 2009 – Etihad Stadium, Melbourne, Australia
22 November, 2009 – Sydney Football Stadium, Sydney, Australia
25 November, 2009 – QSAC Stadium, Brisbane, Australia
27 November, 2009 – Mt Smart, Auckland, New Zealand
29 November, 2009 – AMI Stadium, Christchurch, New Zealand

Ben Harper with his Relentless7 and Liam Finn will open all shows. Tickets for all shows go on sale on August 17 (details here – Ten Club pre-sale starts on August 7, info here). Talking about openers, it has just been announced that Ted Leo + the Pharmacists will open the August 21 Toronto show. Supporting Pearl Jam for both shows in Chicago on August 23 and 24 will be Bad Religion.

The band’s website has also announced, for the first time, a concert poster pre-sale for some of the 2009 shows. Currently available are Calgary 8/8, Toronto 8/21, Chicago 8/23 Chicago 8/24 and San Francisco 8/28. This is an exclusive pre-sale for Ten Club members who purchased tickets to that particular show (for Calgary and San Francisco shows, the pre-sale is available for a limited amount of posters and is open to all members). Posters will be mailed within 2 weeks of the show and no previews or artist information are available at the moment. The pre-sale will end on August 7. At the end of tour, there will be the normal poster sale for all Ten Club members, as usual. Info here.

A few days ago, Billboard published a must read article about Pearl Jam, revealing that those who purchase the album through Target will be able to access a “virtual ‘vault'” of 11 concerts spanning Pearl Jam’s career, from which fans can choose two. The band will also create an organic cotton T-shirt to be sold at Target, with proceeds earmarked for the hunger relief charity Feeding America. “Backspacer” will also be available on “Rock Band” the day it comes out, and Target has an exclusive on an edition of the album featuring access to download its songs for “Rock Band” on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network. The partnership with US mobile operator Verizon, started during the 2008 tour and continued with the reissue of “Ten”, has been re-extended to include ringtones and ringbacks for songs from “Backspacer,” which will roll out at a rate of one per week until release date, as well as mobile bootlegs for the band’s fall tour. Between now and the album’s release on Sept. 20, the company will be offering one exclusive ringtone a week (and three the final week before release). The songs will be available from VZW Tones or www.vzw.com/mp3. More info here.

Talking about Billboard, “The Fixer” debuted at No. 2 on the Rock Songs chart and No. 11 on the Alternative Songs chart; it’s also the “Airplay Gainer” on both of those charts. (Info & pic above courtesy of TwoFeetThick).

In the last few days, Mike and Stone spoke to several US radio stations. You can listen to the interviews here:

Mike McCready

FM 94.9 KBZT (San Diego) > listen
103.7 The Mountain (Seattle) > listen
KNDD, 107.7 The End (Seattle) > listen
WXRP (New York) > listen 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Stone Gossard

FM 104.5 (Philadelphia) > listen
93.3 FM WMMR (Philadelphia) > listen
FM 103.9 (Phoenix) > listen
Q101 (Chicago) > listen
92,3 FM (Cleveland) > listen

On July 21, Ed Vedder also spoke with BBC DJ Zane Lowe. You can listen to the interview here (starting at 33:55). Regarding making “Backspacer”, Ed said the process was “easier and quicker” than in the past, adding that oftentimes ”songs are like children” in that they are “pure when they come out, and grow up to be difficult to control… stubborn” and “insolent.”  Ed mentioned that recording the latest album was “less of a science project and more like flowers blooming”, that the process was easier, attributing that to being “around long enough to communicate well.” He added that during recording the band were “excited to get down to business and not think about it too much.” Regarding the upcoming tour, when asked about being in rehearsals, Ed laughed and said there would be none and that “we know what we’re doin’, we’ll be alright. I’d rather spend time out on the water.” (Credits: TwoFeetThick)

The Ten Club has announced a charity auction to benefit CCFA and Advocacy for Patients. You can bid on a Lotus Stratocaster guitar donated by Mike McCready and signed by Mike McCready, Stone Gossard, Duff McKagan and Robin Trower. The auction package also includes several gadgets. More details @charitybuzz.

Starting today, “The Fixer” single is available for streaming at Pearl Jam’s MySpace page, as well as being released to radio. It is not yet clear whether the single will soon be made available as a digital download. * UPDATE * (07.21.09) “The Fixer” is now available for streaming at www.pearljam.com, on the homepage’s music player.

It seems that Pearl Jam keep surprising their fans these days. Today NME and other reliable sources report that Pearl Jam will play a special one-off show at the O2 Shepherds Bush Empire in London on August 11, just a few days before the actual mini European tour (which kicks off in Rotterdam on August 13 and ends at the O2 Arena in London on August 18). Tickets to this intimate show will go on sale via a HMV pre-sale on Tuesday 21st July 2009 at 09:00 GMT to fans who pre-order new studio album ‘Backspacer’ at HMV.com before July 20 (full details here). Tickets go on general sale from www.hmv.com and the SBE box office on Thursday, July 23rd. This venue has a capacity of just 2000, so the first thing that obviously comes to mind is the warm-up show that the band played at London’s Astoria Theatre in 2006, before the Avocado album was released. Best of luck to those who try to get these tickets!

* UPDATE * (07.17.09) The band’s official site has confirmed the gig and has announced a Ten Club ticket pre-sale that will start at 5pm UK local time (9am Pacific) on July 20th and will be limited to UK and Ireland members only. Ten Club tickets will be sold as a lottery purchase (all details here).