Pearl Jam · MSU Auditorium, East Lansing · 23 October 1991

Third on the Handbill

23 October 1991 · MSU Auditorium · East Lansing

On October 23, 1991, Pearl Jam played the MSU Auditorium in East Lansing, supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with the Smashing Pumpkins on the bill, seven songs in the Milwaukee order of the night before. Both chronologies print the list and nothing else; a handbill names the band third, and a Cleveland club's calendar had the band that night.

The show

At the MSU Auditorium

The night before, the band had played Milwaukee; that night is told in The First Flower. The band's tour book for the run, as the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology reproduces it, has East Lansing on the 23rd in a room it prints as the MSU Arena, and Thursday the 24th as a day off in Pittsburgh. Both chronologies call the room the MSU Auditorium, Five Horizons adding the university's name; by Wikipedia's account it is the campus's own Auditorium building, on Farm Lane. The poster, headed Prism Presents, prints it as the Michigan State University Auditorium under the Red Hot Chili Peppers' name and the date, and names no other act.

A handbill from the same entry does: under the line "Q106 Welcomes The Concert Of The Year!" it bills the Chili Peppers with special guests, the Smashing Pumpkins above Pearl Jam, at $18.50, promoted by Pop Entertainment Productions, and spells the band's name, in its own styling, PEARL J·A·M.

The club run had planned that Wednesday for Cleveland: Peabody's Down Under, in the Cleveland Flats, listed the band with I Love You for October 23 on its September calendar, reproduced by the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology under its Fall Tour heading as a canceled date and credited to a contributor; the club tour book had the same plan. By the 23rd both chronologies place the band in East Lansing instead.

Five Horizons alone lists a second entry for the day, an acoustic radio session with an interview in Lansing, station unnamed, with two titles, "Porch" and "Wash."

The Performance

The set, the same in both entries, was seven songs: "Wash," "Once," "Even Flow," "Alive," "Jeremy," "Why Go," and "Porch." It is the Milwaukee list of the night before without its fragment.

Both entries file the show under a supporting line naming the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Smashing Pumpkins, in different orders.

The Next Step

The next entry in both is Friday, October 25, at the A.J. Palumbo Center in Pittsburgh, with no set list in either; the night after, Saturday, October 26, at the Cleveland Music Hall, is told in This Is Seattle.

Recording & sound

What the Record Preserves

The two entries share the date, the room, the bill, and the seven songs; the rest comes from the documents.

What the record preserves of East Lansing is a Wednesday in a university hall, seven songs in the order of the night before, a name printed third on a handbill and absent from a poster, and a club calendar that had promised the band, that night, to Cleveland.