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
Standort	Vereinigte Staaten
Associated album	Vs.
Start date	October 28, 1993
End date	April 17, 1994
Legs	2
No. of shows	52 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." During this tour the band set a cap on ticket prices in the attempt to thwart scalpers.

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".

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's historic and 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, Nevada 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, Illinois in March 1994 that ticket vendor Ticketmaster had added a service charge to the tickets. The band's April 3, 1994 concert in Atlanta, Georgia 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, Washington 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." 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." 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. Pearl Jam's plans for a 1994 summer tour were cancelled as a result of a Ticketmaster boycott.

Tour dates

Information taken from various sources.

Warm-Up Shows

Date	Standort	Venue	Opening act
October 25, 1993	Seattle, Washington	Off Ramp Café
October 27, 1993	Santa Cruz, California	The Catalyst	American Music Club

United States Leg 1

Date	Standort	Venue	Opening acts	Notes
October 28, 1993	San Francisco, California	The Warfield Theatre	Rollins Band
October 30, 1993	San Jose, California	SJSU Event Center
October 31, 1993	Berkeley, California	Greek Theatre	Rollins Band, American Music Club
November 2, 1993	San Diego, California	Civic Theatre	American Music Club
November 3, 1993
November 4, 1993	Hollywood, California	Whisky a Go Go
November 5, 1993	Indio, California	Empire Polo Fields	American Music Club, Weapon of Choice, Eleven
November 6, 1993	Mesa, Arizona	Mesa Amphitheatre	Bill Miller, Butthole Surfers
November 7, 1993
November 9, 1993	Albuquerque, New Mexico	Convention Exhibition Hall	Butthole Surfers
November 11, 1993	Denton, Texas	University of North Texas Coliseum, Super Pit
November 12, 1993	Dallas, Texas	Moody Coliseum
November 16, 1993	New Orleans, Louisiana	Lakefront Arena	Urge Overkill
November 17, 1993
November 19, 1993
November 20, 1993	Nacogdoches, Texas	William R. Johnson Coliseum at Stephen F. Austin State University
November 22, 1993	Little Rock, Arkansas	Barton Coliseum
November 23, 1993	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma	T&T Center
November 24, 1993	Wichita, Kansas	Century II
November 26, 1993	Boulder, Colorado	Balch Fieldhouse, University of Colorado at Boulder	Urge Overkill, Mudhoney
November 27, 1993			Mudhoney
November 28, 1993				Cancelled
November 30, 1993	Las Vegas, Nevada	Aladdin Theatre for the Performing Arts		Previously scheduled for the Sands Hotel.
December 1, 1993
December 2, 1993	Reno, Nevada	Lawlor Events Center	Urge Overkill, Mudhoney
December 7, 1993	Seattle, Washington	Seattle Center Arena	Urge Overkill, Six in the Clip
December 8, 1993
December 9, 1993			Urge Overkill, Hater

United States Leg 2

Date	Standort	Venue	Opening acts
March 6, 1994	Denver, Colorado	Paramount Theatre	The Frogs
March 7, 1994
March 9, 1994	Pensacola, Florida	Civic Center	L7, Follow for Now
March 10, 1994	Chicago, Illinois	Chicago Stadium	The Frogs, Urge Overkill
March 13, 1994		New Regal Theater	The Frogs, Magic Slim and the MGs
March 14, 1994	St. Louis, Missouri	Fox Theatre	The Frogs, Grant Lee Buffalo
March 15, 1994			The Frogs
March 17, 1994	West Lafayette, Indiana	Elliot Hall, Purdue University	Grant Lee Buffalo
March 19, 1994	Detroit, Michigan	Masonic Theater
March 20, 1994	Ann Arbor, Michigan	Crisler Arena
March 22, 1994	Cleveland, Ohio	Cleveland State University Convocation Center
March 24, 1994	Louisville, Kentucky	Louisville Gardens	King's X
March 25, 1994	Memphis, Tennessee	Mid-South Coliseum
March 26, 1994	Murfreesboro, Tennessee	Murphy Center
March 28, 1994	Miami, Florida	Bayfront Amphitheater
March 29, 1994	St. Petersburg, Florida	Bayfront Arena
April 2, 1994	Atlanta, Georgia	Fox Theatre
April 3, 1994
April 6, 1994	Springfield, Massachusetts	Civic Center	Mudhoney
April 7, 1994	Rochester, New York	War Memorial
April 8, 1994	Fairfax, Virginia	Patriot Center
April 10, 1994	Boston, Massachusetts	Boston Garden
April 11, 1994
April 12, 1994		Orpheum Theatre
April 17, 1994	New York, New York	Paramount Theater

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" (The 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" (The 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 & The Wailers)
• "Throw Your Arms Around Me" (Hunters & Collectors)
• "Tonight's the Night" (Neil Young) (snippet)
• "Young Man Blues" (Mose Allison) (snippet)