I've written about this before, but before No Code came out (summer '96, I was 13), the guy at the local record store told me and my friends that he would sell us the album early if we could get him 100 Pepsi rewards points so that he could put it towards a leather jacket. I have no idea why a leather jacket with a Pepsi logo on it was so important to him but he really wanted it for some reason. So four friends and I basically spent three weeks ransacking every trash can and dumpster within a two-mile radius, looking for these things (at that time they were included as cut-outs on the packaging -- I think a 12-pack had like 5 points on it or something like that). We begged family, friends, and neighbors for the packaging from any Pepsi products they had in the house. We walked around the neighborhood with a lawnmower soliciting jobs so that we could earn money to buy Pepsi items from the store. We accomplished our mission and ended up mostly hating the album. Quite a time, 1996.

That reminds me....

In order to afford the ticket to my first PJ Show Milwaukee 95, me and my buddy started a car wash business. We were 14. We mocked up some coupons that could be redeemed for the car wash and sold them in packs of like 5. We walked around the neighborhood door to door selling them. It worked!

I was very high on the Avocado album when it first came out. So much so, that I declared to one of my friends, whose musical opinions I very much respect, that “it might be their best album!”

That statement haunted me for years. But when I brought it up with him again recently, he had no memory of it. So crisis averted!

Glad I didn’t get that Avocado tattoo.

In early 03 I was deployed to the Middle East for the eventual invasion of Iraq. I don't remember the timeline, but somehow at some point over there I knew I had gotten tickets to the Vegas show that tour, in June. But I was not going to be in the States. I was scheduled for a short leave home but not until the end of July. Through some string pulling and an agreement that I stay over there at the end of my tour an extra 90 days to help someone else out, I was able to get leave, fly back to the States, get out to Vegas for a show, and then fly back 10 days later. Those extra 90 days over there were pure hell, the worst of my tour, and I'm embarrassed to have done all that just to see Pearl Jam.

still, PJ pulled you out of Iraq just for one night... I can't imagine anything more PJ than that; you might even say they did their job

That's... Wow, Ruddo.

have you heard of diplomatic resolve?

Glad you’re back and here to tell that embarrassing story in this silly thread, Ruddo.

Respect, Ruddo

Eddie got booed at that Vegas show, lol. He brought up Ralph Nader

In my 32 years of PJ fandom I'm not sure there is anything really "embarrassing".

Recording videos and talk show appearances on vhs since there wasn't anything fancy like the internet.

I remember posting on alt.music.pearl-jam message board, before here.


good times.

Trying to explain to my future wife at the second MSG show in 2008 about the significance of the band opening the show with Release and at various points an almost oral history of them playing other songs at the Garden. I give her credit for sticking with me after that. Definitely that meme where the guy is standing there disinterested while the girl is yelling in his ear excitedly.

I was saving this for the poll/tournament … pretty embarrassing that supporting Nader got Dubya elected

All that for them to play a second encore thats only covers

Right!? Fuckin' Up was pretty great though.

That's not a bad setlist though Ruddo.

That's a hell of a trade though.

This thread is next level

turning 18 and going out every weekend to the same pub and drunkenly shouting at the house band to play pearl jam, to which they would play betterman, (only for me to be dissapointed there was no tag)