Pearl Jam gets ready for world tour
Veteran Seattle rockers are launching a world tour tonight at the Air Canada Centre because Toronto is their kind of town
By SHERRI WOOD -- Toronto Sun

Starting tonight, Toronto gets a big, personal thank you from Pearl Jam as they kick off their 2006 world tour with two dates this week at the Air Canada Centre.

It may be their last Canadian performance.

"It's harder to tour now, for sure," said bassist Jeff Ament, yesterday, in town rehearsing for the shows.

"Not only are you away from home, but physically it's hard -- I'm 43 years old and I have to work out every morning, do yoga, get massages and all that, just to be able to play the show every night. Everyone was super excited about this record, including me, so that's why we're going out for 80-plus shows. But this could be our last show here for a while."

The Seattle quintet, rounded out by vocalist/guitarist Eddie Vedder, guitarist Stone Gossard, drummer Matt Cameron and guitarist Mike McCready, are touring in support of their eighth studio album, a self-titled, 13-track project released last week.

They have been selective about where they will play on this tour. Ament says they're not playing "places they should be," such as Texas, Florida, and parts of Northern Europe.

It seems pretty weighty then, that they've not only committed themselves to two Toronto shows (the only Canadian dates), but have decided to launch the entire tour here. "We had so much fun on our last Canadian tour and Toronto's such an amazing, multicultural city and is such a good representation of North America," said Ament. "I really get the sense that people love the arts here and love the music, and it feels like people really do care. That's why we're here, that's why we're kicking the tour off here."

The group, which last played Toronto in December, have decided to donate one dollar from every ticket sold to a local charity in each city they play.

Since the band's Vitalogy Foundation will support the U.S. charities, the group has decided to donate $1 Canadian per ticket from their own pockets for the Toronto dates. Tuesday's proceeds go to the anti-violence-against-women White Ribbon Campaign, and Wednesday's show will support Sketch -- a non-profit initiative that engages homeless youth in the arts.

It's only the tip of a 15-year philanthropic history for Pearl Jam, who have contributed to numerous benefit concerts, albums and other charitable efforts, including Tibetan Freedom concerts, cancer benefits, Neil Young's annual Bridge School benefit concerts -- the list goes on and on.

"We blew up right off the bat and so the (charitable work) was a really great way for us to handle coming into a bunch of money," said Ament. "We knew we wanted to give back, we had a lot of conversations very early on about how we wanted to do things."

Over the years, the band has publicly put a lot of effort into donating money and time to various non-profits, and also towards keeping ticket and merchandise prices low (remember the mid-'90s TicketMaster boycott?).

Well, they're back on the TicketMaster boat, and at $60.50 a pop, a seat at the show certainly isn't cheap.

"The first nine years as a band we didn't make any money touring, so there came a point where we wanted to feel good about going out there for eight months and to be able to make a little money," said Ament. "Every once in a while I hear somebody make a comment about how we wear this punk-rock ethos on our sleeves, but we're multi-millionaires. We work our asses off and have worked our asses off for a long time, and not only does the band give away a lot of money but we all individually give a lot of money away and are very involved in (good causes). I feel good about what we do with the money we make -- not a lot of it is wasted."

Pricey or not, the shows are almost sold-out. It's no secret Toronto loves Pearl Jam. Ament says they'll tailor a set list specifically to this city -- something they do for every place they visit.

"Every night we sit down before the show and make up a set list for that night, specific to the place we're playing. Ed takes great care in paying attention to what's happening in every place we go," said Ament. "I think our concerts are real and it's not David Lee Roth up there giving the same spiel every night -- our shows take on a life of their own."

Ament says he thinks this is the reason Pearl Jam fans remain so loyal.

"They get excited about that moment in a show that wasn't scripted -- that they're going to witness something that only happens once and I think that happens almost every single night," said Ament. "We really push ourselves to get into new territory every night."

The last time Pearl Jam played Toronto, Bono showed up as a surprise guest for a rare live off-the-cuff collaboration.

When asked if the band has any similar surprises up their collective sleeve for this week's shows, Ament remained evasive.

"I don't know who's in town right now that we know," he said. "It's too bad, The Strokes guys were here just a couple of days ago. We could've gotten those guys out to bang on a couple tambourines or something, but I think they left yesterday. I don't really know -- if you run into anybody who wants to play tambourine, let me know."

Great article, but if they stay away from Canada for a while...i will be upset.

he also alluded to them not doing any southern dates, but I still think they will.

Tourings in their blood, but if they need to take a year or two off after a monster tour I have no beef with that.

They have been selective about where they will play on this tour. Ament says they're not playing "places they should be," such as Texas, Florida, and parts of Northern Europe.

That wasn't alluding, that was coming right out and saying it.

I am glad that I will get to see a few shows on what could be the last time through for a while.

i got lambasted on synergy for saying that pearl jam didnt make money touring.

see,i was right.

they did MAKE money, they just owed it back to Sony/Epic for a number of years

And gave it to all those freeloadin' charities

80 plus shows, there's only approx 50-60 listed on pearljam.com at the moment, so looks promising.

Could you believe they would do a world tour and not make a stop in Seattle ?!

They must come back to NA for a third and fourth leg after they're back from down under...

Did they play Seattle in 03? I guess they sort of started off the Riot Act tour in Seattle though with those shows in December of 02, so I suupose that counts.

those warmup shows in 02 in seattle, while very fun, were some of the sloppiest I've seen PJ play :) hell they might hold the records for the most fuckups i've seem them do live :)

that being said, i'm quite happy that the gorge shows this year are at the end of the NA tour, it'll give the band plenty of time to warm up. Allthough I was complete fabergasted last year at the gorge, because the show kicked so much ass, and it was only the 2nd show of the tour, usually they don't start pulling out 3 hour setlists and what not til the end of a tour.

so i'm pretty stoked for the gorge this year :)

i also don't think they'll skip Canada on future tours, I just got the feeling from that, they they might take quite the break from touring, when this tour is up, so it could be 3 or 4 years before they finish and album and tour here again.

I hope not.

I'm broke, so I'm kinda relieved that they're skipping Vancouver on this tour... hopefully they hit it at the end (and hopefully my situation has improved).

Selfish I know but it would drive me insane not being able to go.

Yeah, that pretty much says, "We aren't going to be playing Florida and Texas at all this tour" to me.

My one consolation is that I'll get a free copy of the new album out of this. Now where is that thread...

I aswell... come back guys! come back!

I'm hoping so...once they get into their "how fast can we play this" 3rd/4th leg groove, they'll want to hit up those places that could give half a shit. I'll understand, though, if they stick to Jeff's word.

In this article Jeff says:

"It's harder to tour now, for sure," said bassist Jeff Ament, yesterday, in town rehearsing for the shows.
"Not only are you away from home, but physically it's hard -- I'm 43 years old and I have to work out every morning, do yoga, get massages and all that, just to be able to play the show every night. Everyone was super excited about this record, including me, so that's why we're going out for 80-plus shows. But this could be our last show here for a while." Check it out : http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/2006/05/09/1570411.html

I wouldn't look into that too much.

They did 2003 tour, VFC tour, Canadian/Latin-American tour and now 2006 tour, with indefinite plans of adding shows in 2007. A break after that would only be normal.

Besides, Toronto has its 3rd show in 8 months tonight. They should be able to survive a couple of years without PJ show.

ucking pisses me off - the uk should be a prioty over a town that just got 3 shows in 8 fucking months - were not even getting a proper tour! fuck them.

yeah but using that logic NYC/NJ/Philly should be ok to wait another 15 years or so with the number of shows that have been played over the past few tours in that area....

Plus let's not forget that besides Toronto/Montreal and sometimes Vancouver, Canada was completely ignored between 93 and 2005.