Seven Shows in Seven Days

At Tower Records and Compact Disc World

The night before, the band had played Warwick, Rhode Island; that night is told in 45 Minutes from Boston. The tour book for the run, as the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology reproduces it, has Thursday the 14th in New Haven, Connecticut, with no venue, between Warwick and the Friday at Roseland. Neither listing has a New Haven entry for the date, and the two in-stores stand where the book's plan had been. The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology's entry for a canceled July 16 show at The Moon in New Haven says the show was rescheduled to October 18 and then to November 14, a date also canceled because of Pearl Jam's tour with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Smashing Pumpkins.

Both chronologies name the store Tower Records, Yonkers, and mark the set acoustic in their headings. Both compare the appearance to the Tower Records in-store in Rockville, Maryland, on Saturday, November 9, told in The First Tattoo: a small stage set up in the record store, they say, and a short, informal set. Neither entry prints a time for Yonkers, and two documents the first reproduces disagree. A Tower Records newspaper ad has Pearl Jam, on Thursday, November 14, from 4-6 PM, performing a special acoustic set and signing autographs at the chain's Yonkers store. A handbill, credited to a contributor, is lettered Pearl Jam, live, Tower, 2167 Central Ave, Yonkers NY, Thursday 11·14, 3:30 PM.

The second room is the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology's alone: Compact Disc World at the Menlo Park Mall in Edison, New Jersey, at about 8pm, it says, a few hours after Yonkers. The store's handbill, which the same source reproduces, credited to a contributor, names Pearl Jam at Compact Disc World, Menlo Park Mall, meet the band, a live acoustic set, an Epic recording artist that includes former members of Mother Love Bone, a cassette at 6.99 and a CD at 10.99, for Thursday, November 14th, 1991, at 7:30 PM.

Yonkers, by Wikipedia's account, lies immediately north of the Bronx, and the Menlo Park Mall stands on Route 1 in Edison.

The Performance

The Yonkers set, the same in both entries, was five songs: "Wash," "Black," "Alive," "Oceans," and "Porch." It is the Rockville four with "Oceans" added between "Alive" and "Porch," a request, both say, from a small audience calling out for songs. Before "Porch," both say, the band strummed a bit of Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Vedder sang without a microphone for half the show, both say, and was hoarse after seven shows in seven days, in the phrase both print. During "Alive" he changed a line to joke about having no voice, and the crowd laughed. Someone in the crowd remarked on his bandaged hand, both entries say, and he told them he had hurt it on the Tuesday, two nights before in New York at the Roseland, bashing Dave's cymbals, Dave Abbruzzese by the run's tour book. Both call it an excellent acoustic set, and both say signing and pictures followed.

At Compact Disc World that evening, by the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology, the band played two songs, "Black" and "Porch," acoustic and without a PA system, so that Vedder sang without a microphone. Abbruzzese's drums had been left in New York, and he kept the beat, in the entry's words, on his legs. Signing and pictures followed there too, it says.

The Next Step

The next entry in both is Friday, November 15, the third of the run's Roseland nights, told in The Michael Jackson Video.