PJ Music Factory

A Show Known as Mudfest

· Motorsport Park · Gimli

Both notes say a downpour before the concert gave the Gimli show the name Mudfest, and that the band, kept to early 45-minute sets on the Neil Young tour, was bursting to play for more than 90 minutes. The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology adds that this was the first "Daughter" to carry the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" as a tag.

On Saturday, August 14, 1993, Pearl Jam played Sunfest in Gimli, Manitoba, at a motorsport park that the two chronologies name a letter apart. For attendance the Pearl Jam Concert Chronology prints 19 000 and Five Horizons 47,000, with no sold-out mark in either. Both list the same nineteen entries in one order, from "Even Flow" to "Baba O'Riley," the chronology setting the last four on an encore line, and both join "Gimme Shelter" to "Daughter." Their notes tell one account in almost the same words, of a show often called Mudfest after a downpour before the concert, and of a night that became the band's own.

The show

Sunfest in Gimli

The Pearl Jam Concert Chronology heads the night at Gimli Motorsports Park in Gimli (Winnipeg), MB, Canada, with Sunfest in parentheses; Five Horizons has Gimli Motorsport Park in Gimli, Manitoba, and Sunfest '93, and brackets 100m after its heading without stating what it measures. The chronology's note credits the band with helping the festival to its largest single-day crowd, 19 000 on the night Pearl Jam played; Five Horizons' note says nothing of it. Neither chronology's entry prints an opening act, a supporting act, a capacity, a show time or a ticket price.

The Performance

The chronology prints fifteen entries from "Even Flow" to "Porch," then an encore line of four, "Indifference," "Sonic Reducer," "Rockin' in the Free World" and "Baba O'Riley"; Five Horizons prints the same nineteen as one list, capitals aside. Both lists join "Gimme Shelter," in parentheses, to "Daughter," the seventh entry, and of the two notes, only the chronology's calls this the first time "Gimme Shelter," a Rolling Stones song, served as a tag in "Daughter." Otherwise the two notes tell one account, Five Horizons writing Ed and PJ where the chronology writes Eddie and Pearl Jam. Both say that the band, limited to a 45-minute early slot while touring with Neil Young, was bursting to play for more than 90 minutes, which they give as one reason the show was so incredible. They say the band was offered the slot, call it the one band from outside Canada ever to play the festival, and say that despite the singer's drinking Pearl Jam was very high in energy and intense. Five Horizons ends its entry with a line reading setlist scan.

The Next Step

Edmonton, two nights before, is told in Release First, the Rest Unordered; neither chronology prints a heading for August 13. Neither prints one for August 15 or 16 either; both put the next show three nights later, on August 17, in Hull, at the Centre Robert-Guertin by the chronology's heading and the Robert Guertin Arena by Five Horizons'; it is told in A Wooden Cross in the Third Encore.

Recording & sound

What the Record Preserves

Five objects hang with the night's entry on the chronology's page: images whose markup titles read Ad, Setlist, Setlist (signed) and Map, and one whose markup title names Mike McCready, Eddie Vedder and Jeff Ament, before a credit. Who is pictured is the chronology's identification in its markup. The house holds one text file for the night, a ConcertInfo information file. Its first line is Five Horizons' heading and the line after it, 100m included, and its note is Five Horizons' word for word, one source with it. Its fifteen numbered items run from "Deep" to "Baba O'Riley" in the chronologies' order, the third being "Daughter" with "Gimme Shelter" in parentheses. It names four songs as missing from the recording, "Even Flow," "Why Go," "Animal" and "Glorified G," measured against Five Horizons' setlist and information, a claim about the recording, not the concert; they are the chronologies' first, second, fifth and sixth entries, which have no item. It dates the concert's digitizing and clean-up to 3/11/00; it gives no source, equipment or lineage. Gimli comes down to a park spelt two ways, two attendance figures, nineteen entries in one order, one account in both notes of a downpour and a night that became the band's, five objects and an information file that repeats Five Horizons.

Other Media (22)

Other accounts

No further accounts of this show have been added.

Sources & thanks (4)
  1. Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — 1993 page
  2. Five Horizons — Concert chronology 1993, entries for 08/12/93, 08/14/93 and 08/17/93
  3. Pearl Jam Concert Chronology — 1993 page, the entry for the date
  4. The house archive — Information file in the 1993-08-14 folder