This Is Seattle

At the Cleveland Music Hall

Three nights earlier the band had played East Lansing; that night is told in Third on the Handbill. After the tour book's day off in Pittsburgh on Thursday, October 24, both chronologies list Friday, October 25, at the A.J. Palumbo Center there, a room the book prints as the Palumbo Arena; the first gives 3,269 and no set list, the second a bare listing.

For Pittsburgh the first prints a summary rather than a list: the crowd threw all the chairs to the back of the hall, it says, Flea, the Chili Peppers' bassist, smashed his bass at the climax of their set, and there was, in its words, less enthusiasm for the openers. It reproduces a review of the show by a critic in The Pittsburgh Press, a clipping without a printed date and the one documented running order in this stretch: Pearl Jam, the critic wrote, "opened the show," and "Next up was Smashing Pumpkins"; he wrote of "the crowd of 3,269," the entry's figure. Of the opening band he wrote that, led by "the full baritone of Eddie Vedder," it turned in "an above-average mix of wah-wah guitar, feedback, deft touches of melody and hard rock"; at the close, he wrote, Flea "smashed his bass into pieces."

The club run had planned this Saturday for a late show at the Cabaret Metro in Chicago with I Love You at 11:30 pm by the club's October ad, reproduced by the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology under its Fall Tour heading as a canceled date; the club tour book had the same plan. Both chronologies name the room the Cleveland Music Hall, and the tour book prints Music Hall; by Wikipedia's account it is the Music Hall of the city's Public Auditorium of 1922 on Lakeside Avenue, the hall added at the building's south end in 1928; a re-print poster the first reproduces bills the Chili Peppers with special guests the Smashing Pumpkins and Pearl Jam for Saturday, October 26, at 7:30. Five Horizons also lists, the same day, a radio-promotion basketball game at Normandy High School in Parma, Ohio, and says it is unsure whether music was played.

The Performance

The band came on, the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology says, to the opening music of "Master/Slave," a hidden instrumental that opens and closes Ten by Wikipedia's account, and Vedder greeted a crowd the entry calls sparse before "Wash": "Hello. Where is everybody? Smokin' beer? Drinkin' pot? For you guys who've come early, we'll make it worth your while."

The set, the same in both entries, was seven songs: "Wash," "Once," "Even Flow," "Alive," "Jeremy," "Why Go," and "Porch," the East Lansing list of three nights before.

With the crowd still not awake, the same entry says, Vedder chided it a second time: "it just looks like a big theater. It looks really boring. So if you feel like standing up and moving around or something, do it up." "Once," it says, got a few on their feet, and Vedder shouted "Feels good!" during the first verse.

Before "Even Flow," the entry quotes him: "So tonight we're the representative band from Seattle. You got Chicago, you got Hollywood. It's a beautiful night, this is Seattle." The entry glosses Chicago as the Pumpkins and Hollywood as the Chili Peppers.

Five Horizons' note has Vedder talking about Flea having smashed his instrument the night before because the crowd was so into it, a guitar in one sentence and his favorite bass of the past three years in the next, and saying that if this kept up Flea would not be smashing any basses tonight.

On "Porch," the finale, the two entries part on a number: the first has Vedder jump down into the audience and bring eight fans up on stage; Five Horizons has him invite a dozen or so fans on stage to dance, then yell at someone, "Leave them alone. Hey! One song. They're gonna stay there one song!" and later take a running leap into the crowd.

The Next Step

The next entry in both is Sunday, October 27, at the Rochester Auditorium Center in Rochester, New York, with no set list in either. After the tour book's day off on Monday, October 28, both list two nights at the Concert Hall in Toronto; the second, Wednesday, October 30, is told in Tonight It Lives.