Do You Think I Should Trust Them?
A named staff writer at Memorial Hall set down the order the three bands played in, three of Pearl Jam's titles and a question the singer put to the front rows. One chronology prints the night as seven songs and the other prints none.
Setlist
Pearl Jam Concert Chronology
No separate printed encore line; this does not prove no encore occurred. Any inline encore description remains in its printed position.
setlist
- Once
- Why Go
- Even Flow
- Deep
- Jeremy
- Alive
- Porch
On Wednesday, December 4, 1991, Pearl Jam played Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kansas, supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with the Smashing Pumpkins also on the bill. The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology prints the set as seven songs, and Five Horizons prints no set list, no figure and no note. A signed review survives, and it sets down the order the three bands played in from inside the room.
The show
At Memorial Hall
The second St. Louis night is told in A Seat in the Second Balcony. Both chronologies name the room Memorial Hall and put it in Kansas City, Kansas. By Wikipedia's account it is also the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Building, at 600 North 7th Street, built in 1923 and opened in 1925, and listed on the National Register in 1985.
One document hangs under the date, and it is the review. It runs under the headline Rock bands jam Memorial Hall, with a sub-headline given to the headliners and a REVIEW slug beside it. The byline reads Heather Anderson, over the line A&E Writer. The clipping carries no masthead and no issue date, and the file it was saved in carries no title either, so nothing anywhere names the paper. Her review opens: "It was a freakshow at its finest." Heather Anderson then writes that the three bands "filled Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan., to near capacity Wednesday night with a fan combination that was colorful, to say the least."
The Performance
The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology prints the night as seven songs: "Once," "Why Go," "Even Flow," "Deep," "Jeremy," "Alive" and "Porch." It is the one night of this stretch that the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology prints as a complete list, and Five Horizons prints no set for the date at all.
The running order comes from inside the room. Heather Anderson has this band on first, then "Smashing Pumpkins followed," and then "The Chili Peppers headlined the show and were the crowd favorite." Of the opening Heather Anderson writes that "Pearl Jam primed the audience, opening with the band's signature hypnotic yet obvious rock-oriented sound." She files the group under "yet another powerful band from the well-publicized Seattle scene." She names three songs, "Porch," "Once" and "Deep," and offers them as examples of one-word titles rather than as an order, and hers is not the order the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology prints.
"Lead singer Eddie Vedder sported a flirtatious rapport with the crowd that would make corporate rock marketers drool," the reviewer writes. Near the end of what she calls a short set, he put a question to the front rows. Heather Anderson has him saying "These guys up here in front keep motioning for me to jump in the crowd" and then asking, "do you think I should trust them?" The answer was an overwhelming yes, by her account, and it still took a few feints before he jumped. "Vedder then swam a lap over the mosh pit," she writes, likening it to the popular scene in the "Doors" movie.
The Next Step
Friday's show is in New Orleans, and it is told in No City on the Ticket.
Recording & sound
What the Record Preserves
Heather Anderson's is the only account of this night, and the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology's seven titles are the only list of it. She has the order of the bands, three titles as examples, the rapport, the question and what followed it, and the chronology has the songs and nothing else. Five Horizons has the room, the city and the bill, and no more.
What is particular to this night is the question itself, a singer asking the front rows out loud whether he could trust them to catch him. By Heather Anderson's account they said yes, he hesitated, and then he went out over them.
Other Media (0)
Other accounts
No further accounts of this show have been added.
Sources & thanks (4)
- Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — 1991 page
- Five Horizons — Concert chronology 1990–91, entries for 12/03/91, 12/04/91 and 12/06/91
- Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — Signed review by Heather Anderson, A&E Writer, headlined 'Rock bands jam Memorial Hall' (image linked from the December 4, 1991 entry; no masthead, issue date or page number on the clip, and nothing in its file names a paper)
- Wikipedia — Memorial Hall, Kansas City, Kansas (general reference, read September 2026)