Admit One This Date Only
Three pieces of printing survive from Pearl Jam's night at the Unicorn and no account of the show does. Both chronologies mark their set lists incomplete, and they do not print the same songs.
Setlist
Pearl Jam Concert Chronology
incomplete setlist: Wash, Alive, Jeremy, Why Go, Porch, Leash
No separate printed encore line; this does not prove no encore occurred. Any inline encore description remains in its printed position.
Retain incomplete/partial/ellipsis qualifiers. Order is printed order only; a no-order qualifier prevents performance-order inference.
incomplete setlist
- Wash
- Alive
- Jeremy
- Why Go
- Porch
- Leash
the two chronologies disagree on this night; each list stays attributed and unmerged
On Saturday, December 7, 1991, Pearl Jam played the Unicorn in Houston, Texas, supporting the Red Hot Chili Peppers, with the Smashing Pumpkins also on the bill. Both chronologies mark their set lists incomplete, and they do not print the same list. Neither has a note about the show itself, and nobody who was in the room left an account of it. Three documents survive: the room's advertisement, a ticket, and a poster advertising three cities.
The show
At the Unicorn
The New Orleans night is told in No City on the Ticket. Both of this night's own documents print the room THE UNICORN, and Five Horizons and Wikipedia's tour table call it the Unicorn Ballroom. The ticket gives the address as 3301 TIDWELL AT 59 NORTH, and nothing else in the record says where the room stood.
The advertisement is a three-panel strip headed COMING TO THE UNICORN, with the same words repeated upside down along its foot. Its third panel prints the headliners, SAT. DECEMBER 7, then W/ SMASHING PUMPKINS 'N' PEARL JAM, then TICKETS ON SALE NOW! It gives no hour and carries no year of its own. The other two panels advertise the room's coming weeks and are evidence of its programme only.
The ticket prints GEN. ADM. and DEC 7, 1991 under a serial number, and ADMIT ONE THIS DATE ONLY beneath that. It sets the headliners between two rows of asterisks, then the room and the address, then SATURDAY, DEC. 7, 1991, 8:00 PM, with $18.00 between the words NO REFUND and NO EXCHANGE on one band. The serial number is printed three times and is not a count of anything.
The poster is one printed sheet advertising three cities. It is a psychedelic design over black, with a horned skull and a seated figure inside a ring of lettering, the headliners across the top and the two other bands at either side. Its Houston line reads HOUSTON SAT DEC 7 THE UNICORN, and it carries two other cities besides. The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology captions it a poster and credits the artist by name, in the slot where it writes Ad and Ticket elsewhere.
The Performance
The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology prints six titles under an incomplete heading: "Wash," "Alive," "Jeremy," "Why Go," "Porch" and "Leash." Five Horizons prints four of them, in the same relative order: "Alive," "Jeremy," "Why Go" and "Porch." It adds a note of its own, that the set list may be incomplete. Neither list is the set, and nothing in the record settles which is right.
Where the Record Stops
The record of this stretch ends here, with three pieces of printing and no account of the night. What is printed on them is a date, an hour, an address and a price; what happened inside the room is on none of them.
Recording & sound
What the Record Preserves
The two chronologies agree on the date, the city and the bill, and they do not agree on what was played. Neither records anything else of the night: no note about the show, no account by anyone who saw it. All three documents are advance material, printed to sell tickets rather than to set down a performance.
Most of what the night left behind is a stub admitting one person on one date, beside two lists that disagree and a sheet advertising three cities. The street address printed on that stub is the only line in the whole record that says where the room stood.
Other Media (0)
Other accounts
No further accounts of this show have been added.
Sources & thanks (6)
- Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — 1991 page
- Five Horizons — Concert chronology 1990–91, entries for 12/06/91 and 12/07/91
- Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — Newspaper advertisement for the venue, headed 'COMING TO THE UNICORN' (image linked from the December 7, 1991 entry, captioned Ad; no masthead, issue date or year on the clipping)
- Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — Ticket stub for December 7, 1991 (image linked from the December 7, 1991 entry, captioned Ticket)
- Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — Poster, captioned by the chronology 'Poster. Artist: Frank Kozik' (image linked from its December 7, December 8 and December 11, 1991 entries)
- Wikipedia — Tour table for this run (general reference, read September 2026)