Free on the Hill, Counted Two Ways
The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology puts Approx. 18 000 on a hill it spells Companile Hill, and Five Horizons puts 1,000 at Day On the Hill at the University of Kansas; each figure is printed here as its document gives it, and neither is settled. The chronology's note calls the outdoor event free and sponsored by Student Union Activities, gives the band's contract as $3 000, and carries a student advisor's recollection of a January booking that by May had grown past anything intended.
On Saturday, May 2, 1992, Pearl Jam played Lawrence, at an outdoor event the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology heads Companile Hill, with Day On The Hill in parentheses, and Five Horizons heads Day On the Hill at the University of Kansas. The chronology's attendance line reads Approx. 18 000 and Five Horizons' 1,000; each is its document's figure, and the two are not set against each other. The chronology names four opening acts: Tribe After Tribe and Let's Go Bowling, then Zoom and Trademark, in that order on its line; Five Horizons prints no support-act field, and its note says a handbill for the event names Tribe After Tribe and Let's Go Bowling, which it calls a ska band. Five Horizons brackets no figure after its heading for the night, and of the two chronologies only the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology prints a set.
The show
A Free Show on a University Hill
The chronology's note says the outdoor event was sponsored by Student Union Activities and was free, and that Pearl Jam signed a contract for $3 000 to play it. It also carries a recollection from the sponsor's student advisor: the booking dates from January 1992, when "Alive" was the band's only song on the charts; by May the band had risen fast, and no one had planned an event on that scale. Five Horizons' note has the band as one of many acts at a big free event outdoors, and its entry closes with a line reading show poster. Neither chronology prints a soundcheck, a capacity for the ground, or the order in which the opening acts played.
The Performance
The chronology lists "Even Flow," "Why Go," "Jeremy," "Deep," a parenthesised entry it prints as (Hard To Imagine), "Alive," an improvisation, "Black," "State of Love and Trust," "Once" and "Porch," with an encore of "Suggestion," in parentheses as it prints it, "Garden" and "Leash"; Five Horizons prints no set for the night, and the list is the chronology's. The chronology does not say what its parentheses mean.
The Next Step
Houston, two nights before, is told in A Halt Near the End of Porch. Both chronologies put the next show at the Ranch Bowl in Omaha the following night; it is told in Talk of Carrots at the Ranch Bowl.
Recording & sound
What the Record Preserves
Ten objects hang under this date on the chronology's page: an advertisement whose markup title is Ad; a backstage pass, so titled; two untitled PDF links whose file names read program and review, each with a small image; and four images whose markup titles name the band in two and the singer in the other two. Lawrence comes down to two headings that name different things, a hill and a university, two attendance figures that do not agree, four acts in one document and two on a handbill the other reports, one set list, and a note on a free show that by May had outgrown its January booking.
Other Media (0)
Other accounts
No further accounts of this show have been added.
Sources & thanks (3)
- Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — 1992 page
- Five Horizons — Concert chronology 1992, entries for 04/30/92, 05/02/92 and 05/03/92
- Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — 1992 page, the entry for the date