Vs. Tour

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

Vs. Tour
Tour by Pearl Jam
LocationUnited States
Associated albumVs.
Start dateOctober 28, 1993
End dateApril 17, 1994
Legs2
No. of shows52 in United States
52 in total
Pearl Jam concert chronology

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 Los Angeles 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 the Aladdin Theatre
December 1, 1993 Las Vegas Sands Hotel Moved to the Aladdin Theatre

Band members

Songs performed

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.
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