The most embarrassing thing from PJ’s career - RESULTS

[igotworms]

Playing the Oracle OpenWorld corporate gig is by far the worst thing they've done. If it was the Dreamforce gig I may possibly have understood it given Benioff's philanthropy. But Ellison is like a Bond villain IRL. I just couldn't believe Pearl Jam would shit the bed like that.

[oneway23]

Playing the Oracle OpenWorld corporate gig is by far the worst thing they've done. If it was the Dreamforce gig I may possibly have understood it given Benioff's philanthropy. But Ellison is like a Bond villain IRL. I just couldn't believe Pearl Jam would shit the bed like that.

Good option

[Bammer]

Ed’s charity suing that girl’s family is pretty bad

[oneway23]

Reading this thread, the band is basically more scummy than a gaggle of face scabby meth-heads, at this point

[Farmer John]

Ed punching those orphans at the Sick Kids Hospital was not a good look.

[dad]

Ed punching those orphans at the Sick Kids Hospital was not a good look.

still can't believe he did that.

[Farmer John]

Ed punching those orphans at the Sick Kids Hospital was not a good look.

still can't believe he did that.

Someone post the gif!

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[tragabigzanda]

pearl jam sucks now

[Bammer]

So they make a live action video, advertising the sale of their new album, with green screens in the back, which can be edited for a commercial. I really don't think this is high on the embarrassment ladder, compared to MANY other examples.

Nothing wrong with trying to sell your product. Any other band would get no shit for commercial advertising.

Ticketmaster Turnaround, Corduroy C&R, Public Roadie Humiliation... Those are my top three of anything anyone else has presented.

We need a poll.

Forget the poll. I’m drafting up a tournament bracket.

[guitar_davey]

So they make a live action video, advertising the sale of their new album, with green screens in the back, which can be edited for a commercial. I really don't think this is high on the embarrassment ladder, compared to MANY other examples.

Nothing wrong with trying to sell your product. Any other band would get no shit for commercial advertising.

Ticketmaster Turnaround, Corduroy C&R, Public Roadie Humiliation... Those are my top three of anything anyone else has presented.

We need a poll.

Wasn't the partnership with Target structured in some way that independent record stores got some sort of a kickback from it or something?

[bodysnatcher]

So they make a live action video, advertising the sale of their new album, with green screens in the back, which can be edited for a commercial. I really don't think this is high on the embarrassment ladder, compared to MANY other examples.

Nothing wrong with trying to sell your product. Any other band would get no shit for commercial advertising.

Ticketmaster Turnaround, Corduroy C&R, Public Roadie Humiliation... Those are my top three of anything anyone else has presented.

We need a poll.

Wasn't the partnership with Target structured in some way that independent record stores got some sort of a kickback from it or something?

IIRC, the big box store cd release was exclusive to Target but also allowed it to be sold in independent stores

With it came all of the marketing from Target, so it was probably a way for them to get out of having to do that, bc it’s historically obvious they really aren’t good at it.

[stip]

as much as I hate bitchy threads like this, I'd be reluctant to include anything said/done in the heat of the moment during a live show. Over the course of 30+ years where every single live utterance is archived forever you're going to have a moment when you are not your best self. That there are so few is remarkable, and those strike me as something different than actions taken with sober and deliberate intent (though even then in many of these cases we don't know the full story).

I'm sure I have a reputation for being an apologist, but a lot of this is my work/professional life bleeding into this thread. I spend a huge chunk of every day addressing faculty complaints about administration that have only the most superficial understanding of the nuances and data behind decisions and policies that govern what we do, and student complaints about faculty choices that are often informed by a rush to judgement. Plus my academic background in political science is more of the same. The same rush to judgement and moral posturing without a full understanding of the complexity behind why choices are made.

And so I always suspect the actual rationale behind some of the things we complain about have a lot more behind them. Enough that I am generally comfortable giving the benefit of the doubt until we actually know more (which we usually don't).

[stip]

So they make a live action video, advertising the sale of their new album, with green screens in the back, which can be edited for a commercial. I really don't think this is high on the embarrassment ladder, compared to MANY other examples.

Nothing wrong with trying to sell your product. Any other band would get no shit for commercial advertising.

Ticketmaster Turnaround, Corduroy C&R, Public Roadie Humiliation... Those are my top three of anything anyone else has presented.

We need a poll.

Wasn't the partnership with Target structured in some way that independent record stores got some sort of a kickback from it or something?

IIRC, the big box store cd release was exclusive to Target but also allowed it to be sold in independent stores

With it came all of the marketing from Target, so it was probably a way for them to get out of having to do that, bc it’s historically obvious they really aren’t good at it.

I think that's right, because I remember commenting that at the root of the 'Pearl Jam's sold out their values by partnering with a major corporation' was that they were excluding other major corporations.

[Clem Halibut]

Here's a few

1) The EB charity lawsuit / legal action
2) Current ticket prices for Pearl Jam shows
3) 10 club memberships which have risen in price, yet offer far less benefits than when the fan club was first launched.
4) Ed's hairline
5) Ed's dumb hipster hats

This all reminds me of that part Quadrophenia where Jimmy meets his idols THE WHO and realizes that they're actually just a bunch of dumb geezers and buffoons.

[bodysnatcher]

Most of what has been mentioned is coming from a POV of a group of fans that are, or have been, overly invested into the band. A lot of this stuff, if not all, is probably unknown to most average, casual PJ fans. I wonder how a casual fan would answer? I’m guessing current ticket prices if they tried to get tickets. Although you’d probably get a handful of people saying No Code

[tommy]

as much as I hate bitchy threads like this, I'd be reluctant to include anything said/done in the heat of the moment during a live show. Over the course of 30+ years where every single live utterance is archived forever you're going to have a moment when you are not your best self. That there are so few is remarkable, and those strike me as something different than actions taken with sober and deliberate intent (though even then in many of these cases we don't know the full story).

I'm sure I have a reputation for being an apologist, but a lot of this is my work/professional life bleeding into this thread. I spend a huge chunk of every day addressing faculty complaints about administration that have only the most superficial understanding of the nuances and data behind decisions and policies that govern what we do, and student complaints about faculty choices that are often informed by a rush to judgement. Plus my academic background in political science is more of the same. The same rush to judgement and moral posturing without a full understanding of the complexity behind why choices are made.

And so I always suspect the actual rationale behind some of the things we complain about have a lot more behind them. Enough that I am generally comfortable giving the benefit of the doubt until we actually know more (which we usually don't).

Ed's also pretty drunk at a lot of these shows

[BurtReynolds]

The sellout and ticket price stuff doesn't bother me that much. They've been around forever and don't exactly brand themselves as Fugazi these days, and I don't really care when other bands do it. The ticketmaster stuff was what, almost thirty years ago?

[oneway23]

And so I always suspect the actual rationale behind some of the things we complain about have a lot more behind them.

Or...maybe they don't, and, Ed was just really pissed off at a tech, in that instant, on that night. It takes a lot to stand up on stage, there are likely 10k things running through his mind at any given nanosecond, and, while I certainly agree with the analogous idea that we shouldn't treat waitstaff like peons, it is a bit of a different scenario than standing in front of twenty-thousand people.

I'm not going to presume to know how many of us have ever performed live, but, I'd venture to guess few, if any, of those who are ostensibly disappointed by this incident, have ever had the pressure akin to standing onstage in a full arena.
I'd also hazard a guess that many of us have had a moment or two at work, or in our personal lives, where we weren't exactly shimmering beacons of virtue. It's just that 99.99% of the public doesn't care if the average person does something similar at work, and it's certainly not available for posterity on Youtube to be retroactively judged for as long as the internet exists.

I'm not advocating treating others like trash, but a .gif lacking full context isn't a reason for me to harpoon someone, unless we're just making some glib, insincere jokes, which, of course, we always should be.

[rick malone]

Ed started off the Hershey '03 as they were going into the 2nd song by saying "Fuck this fuckin chocolate factory" so he was in a fiery mood I guess.
Or he something else.