Vs. Tour

Vs. Tour

Tour by Pearl Jam
Location	United States
Associated album	Vs.
Start date	October 28, 1993
End date	April 17, 1994
Legs	2
No. of shows	52
Pearl Jam concert chronology
1993 European and North American Tour (1993) Vs. Tour (1993–94) Vitalogy Tour (1995)

The Vs. Tour was a concert tour by the American rock band Pearl Jam to support its second album, Vs.

History

Pearl Jam promoted Vs. with tours in the United States in the fall of 1993 and the spring of 1994. The fall 1993 tour focused on the Western United States, while the spring 1994 tour focused on the Eastern United States. Industry insiders compared Pearl Jam's tour to the touring habits of Led Zeppelin, in that the band "ignored the press and took its music directly to the fans." ^[1] During this tour the band set a cap on ticket prices in the attempt to thwart scalpers. ^[2]

During the tour Pearl Jam concurrently worked on its third album. Several songs from the band's third album, Vitalogy , were premiered during this tour. These include "Last Exit", "Spin the Black Circle", "Not for You", "Tremor Christ", "Nothingman", "Whipping", "Corduroy", "Satan's Bed", "Better Man", and "Immortality". ^[3]

On the evening of November 5, 1993, Pearl Jam performed before almost 25,000 fans that stood and sat through the night on the lawns of Indio, California previously rock-festival free Empire Polo Club. (This show is well known among fans because halfway through the set, fans in the pit began pelting the band with shoes, provoking Vedder and the band to walk off stage, only to come out and play the rest of the set from behind a wall of speakers.) Although band management had chosen this untested and under-developed site as part of a boycott of Ticketmaster and the Southern California auditoriums it controlled, the event established the new venue's suitability for large-scale rock events. Pearl Jam's November 30, 1993 concert in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts featured a reunion by the grunge band Green River. Participating in the reunion were Pearl Jam members Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard, Mudhoney members Mark Arm and Steve Turner, and Chuck Treece, who filled in on drums for Green River drummer Alex Vincent.

Pearl Jam was outraged when it discovered after a pair of shows in Chicago in March 1994 that ticket vendor Ticketmaster had added a service charge to the tickets. ^[4] The band's April 3, 1994 concert in Atlanta at the Fox Theatre was broadcast live on the radio in the United States and was also eventually released as a part of the "Dissident"/Live in Atlanta box set released in Europe. On April 8, 1994, Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home in Seattle due to an apparent suicide, which deeply affected Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder. At the band's April 8, 1994 concert in Fairfax, Virginia at the Patriot Center, Vedder proclaimed, "I don't think any of us would be in this room tonight if it weren't for Kurt Cobain." ^[5] Vedder later said that "the day that we found out about Kurt...I was just spinning. I was lost and didn't know if we should play, or if we should just go home, or if we should attend the services. I still have some regrets about that, even though in the end it was probably better that we played the last two weeks of the tour. I decided I would play those next two weeks and then I'd never have to play again." ^[6] This was Pearl Jam's last tour with drummer Dave Abbruzzese.

Following the tour, the band brought a lawsuit against Ticketmaster that accused them of being a monopoly whose anticompetitive practices allowed markup prices of more than 30%. The band's intention was to get ticket prices lowered for its fans. ^[7] Pearl Jam's plans for a 1994 summer tour were cancelled as a result of a Ticketmaster boycott. ^[8]

Tour dates

Information taken from various sources. ^{[9] [10] [11]}

Date	City	Country	Venue	Opening act
Warm-Up Shows
October 25, 1993	Seattle	United States	Off Ramp Café
October 27, 1993	Santa Cruz		The Catalyst	American Music Club
United States Leg 1
October 28, 1993	San Francisco	United States	Warfield Theatre	Rollins Band
October 30, 1993	San Jose		SJSU Event Center
October 31, 1993	Berkeley		Hearst Greek Theatre	Rollins Band, American Music Club
November 2, 1993	San Diego		Civic Theatre	American Music Club
November 3, 1993
November 4, 1993	West Hollywood		Whisky a Go Go
November 5, 1993	Indio		Empire Polo Club	American Music Club, Weapon of Choice, Eleven
November 6, 1993	Mesa		Mesa Amphitheatre	Bill Miller, Butthole Surfers
November 7, 1993
November 9, 1993	Albuquerque		Convention Exhibition Hall	Butthole Surfers
November 11, 1993	Denton		UNT Coliseum
November 12, 1993	Dallas		Moody Coliseum
November 16, 1993	New Orleans		Lakefront Arena	Mudhoney
November 17, 1993
November 19, 1993
November 20, 1993	Nacogdoches		William R. Johnson Coliseum
November 22, 1993	Little Rock		Barton Coliseum
November 23, 1993	Oklahoma City		T&T Center
November 24, 1993	Wichita		Century II
November 26, 1993	Boulder		Balch Fieldhouse	Urge Overkill, Mudhoney
November 27, 1993				Mudhoney
November 30, 1993	Las Vegas		Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts	Mudhoney
December 1, 1993
December 2, 1993	Reno		Lawlor Events Center	Urge Overkill, Mudhoney
December 7, 1993	Seattle		Seattle Center Arena	Urge Overkill, Six in the Clip
December 8, 1993
December 9, 1993				Urge Overkill, Hater
United States leg 2
March 6, 1994	Denver	United States	Paramount Theatre	The Frogs
March 7, 1994
March 9, 1994	Pensacola		Pensacola Civic Center	L7, Follow for Now
March 10, 1994	Chicago		Chicago Stadium	The Frogs, Urge Overkill
March 13, 1994			New Regal Theater	The Frogs, Magic Slim and the MGs
March 14, 1994	St. Louis		Fox Theatre	The Frogs, Grant Lee Buffalo
March 15, 1994				The Frogs
March 17, 1994	West Lafayette		Elliot Hall	Grant Lee Buffalo
March 19, 1994	Detroit		Detroit Masonic Temple
March 20, 1994	Ann Arbor		Crisler Arena
March 22, 1994	Cleveland		CSU Convocation Center
March 24, 1994	Louisville		Louisville Gardens	King's X
March 25, 1994	Memphis		Mid-South Coliseum
March 26, 1994	Murfreesboro		Murphy Center
March 28, 1994	Miami		Bayfront Amphitheater
March 29, 1994	St. Petersburg		Bayfront Arena
April 2, 1994	Atlanta		Fox Theatre
April 3, 1994
April 6, 1994	Springfield		Springfield Civic Center	Mudhoney
April 7, 1994	Rochester		Rochester Community War Memorial
April 8, 1994	Fairfax		Patriot Center
April 10, 1994	Boston		Boston Garden
April 11, 1994
April 12, 1994			Orpheum Theatre
April 17, 1994	New York City		Paramount Theatre

Cancellations and rescheduled shows

November 28, 1993	Boulder	Balch Fieldhouse	Cancelled
November 30, 1993	Las Vegas	Sands Hotel	Moved to Aladdin Theatre
December 1, 1993	Las Vegas	Sands Hotel	Moved to Aladdin Theatre

Band members

• Jeff Ament  – bass guitar
• Stone Gossard  – rhythm guitar
• Mike McCready  – lead guitar
• Eddie Vedder  – lead vocals, guitar
• Dave Abbruzzese  – drums

Songs performed

Originals "Alive" "Alone" "Angel" "Animal" "Better Man" "Black" "Blood" "Breath" "Corduroy" "Daughter" "Deep" "Dirty Frank" "Dissident" "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" "Even Flow" "Footsteps" "Fuck Me in the Brain" "Garden" "Glorified G" "Go" "Hard to Imagine" "Immortality" "Indifference" "Jeremy" "Last Exit" "Leash" "Not for You" "Nothingman" "Oceans" "Once" "Out of My Mind" "Porch" "Rats" "Rearviewmirror" "Release" "Satan's Bed" "Spin the Black Circle" "State of Love and Trust" "Tremor Christ" "W.M.A." "Wash" "Whipping" "Why Go" "Yellow Ledbetter"

Covers "Across the Universe" (The Beatles) (snippet) "Ain't Nothing to Do" (Dead Boys) "American Pie" (Don McLean) (snippet) "Androgynous Mind" (Sonic Youth) (snippet) "Another Brick in the Wall" (Pink Floyd) (snippet) "Baba O'Riley" (The Who) "Beginning to See the Light" (The Velvet Underground) (snippet) "Crazy Mary" (Victoria Williams) "Fuckin' Up" (Neil Young) "Golden Years" (David Bowie) (snippet) "Happy Birthday" (traditional) "Happy Trails" (Dale Evans) "Hate the Police" (The Dicks) (snippet) "Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black)" (Neil Young) (snippet) "I Am a Patriot" (Steven Van Zandt) "I Won't Back Down" (Tom Petty) "I'm One" (The Who) "I've Got a Feeling" (The Beatles) "Instant Karma!" (John Lennon) (snippet) "The Kids Are Alright" (The Who) "Monkey Gone to Heaven" (Pixies) (snippet) "My Generation" (The Who) "The Real Me" (The Who) (snippet) "Rockin' in the Free World" (Neil Young) "Sail Away" (Neil Young) (snippet) "Sheraton Gibson" (Pete Townshend) "Shine" (Rollins Band) (snippet) "Sick o' Pussies" (Bad Radio) (snippet) "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay" (Otis Redding) "Sonic Reducer" (Dead Boys) "Street Fighting Man" (The Rolling Stones) "Suck You Dry" (Mudhoney) (snippet) "Suspicious Minds" (Elvis Presley) (snippet) "Swallow My Pride" (Green River) "Sweet Emotion" (Aerosmith) (snippet) "Tearing" (Rollins Band) (snippet) "Three Little Birds" (Bob Marley and the Wailers) "Throw Your Arms Around Me" (Hunters & Collectors) "Tonight's the Night" (Neil Young) (snippet) "Young Man Blues" (Mose Allison) (snippet)

References

1. DeRogatis, Jim. Milk It!: Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the 90's[ sic ]. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2003. ISBN   0-306-81271-1, pg. 58
2. DeRogatis, Jim. Milk It!: Collected Musings on the Alternative Music Explosion of the 90's[ sic ]. Cambridge: Da Capo, 2003. ISBN   0-306-81271-1, pg. 59
3. Pearl Jam: Song Index. pearljam.com.
4. Wall, Mick. "Alive". Nirvana and the Story of Grunge. Q p. 99
5. Gunderson, Edna. "Musical artists offer commentary on the late Kurt Cobain" Archived 2009-02-14 at the Wayback Machine . Gannett News Service.
6. Marks, Craig. "Let's Get Lost". Spin . December 1994.
7. "PJ's testimony before Congress regarding Ticketmaster". June 30, 1994.
8. Gordinier, Jeff (1994-10-28). "The Brawls in Their Courts". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved 2007-09-03.
9. "Pearl Jam: Set Lists". Pearljam.com. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
10. "The Five Horizons Concert Chronology". fivehorizons.com. Retrieved 2007-12-08.
11. "The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology". twofeetthick.com. Retrieved 2007-12-08.