{"id":2456350,"date":"2020-03-26T09:03:59","date_gmt":"2020-03-26T15:03:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=973439"},"modified":"2020-03-26T09:03:59","modified_gmt":"2020-03-26T15:03:59","slug":"flashback-pearl-jam-get-booed-for-slamming-george-w-bush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/music-news\/flashback-pearl-jam-get-booed-for-slamming-george-w-bush\/","title":{"rendered":"Flashback: Pearl Jam Get Booed for Slamming George W. Bush"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pearl Jam<\/a> are releasing their new album Gigaton<\/em> tomorrow, but this isn\u2019t exactly how they envisioned release week when they plotted it out late last year. They were supposed to be four shows into a North American arena tour by now with a special gig tonight at New York\u2019s Apollo Theater that would be broadcast live on SiriusXM. They were one of the first major acts to postpone their tour when the coronavirus started spreading across America, but the Gigaton<\/em> release date wasn\u2019t affected.<\/p>\n

One of the new songs from Gigaton, \u201cQuick Escape,\u201d is about a desperate desire to flee Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s America and find peace elsewhere. \u201cCrossed the border to Morocco,\u201d Eddie Vedder sings. \u201cKashmir to Marrakech\/The lengths we had to go to then\/To find a place Trump hadn\u2019t fucked up yet.\u201d By the end of the song, the narrator winds up on Mars, dreaming about the old days of \u201cgreen grass, sky, and red wine\u201d before the world started spinning out of control.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t the first time that Pearl Jam took on an unpopular Republican president by name in a song. That happened back in 2002 with the release of \u201cBu$hleaguer\u201d on Riot Act.<\/em> \u201cA confidence man, but why so beleaguered?\u201d Vedder sings. \u201cHe\u2019s not a leader, he\u2019s a Texas leaguer\/Swinging for the fence, got lucky with a strike\/Drilling for fear, makes the job simple\/Born on third, thinks he got a triple.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This was just a year after 9\/11 and George W. Bush was wildly popular. And when Pearl Jam played the song at Long Island\u2019s Nassau Coliseum on April 30th, 2003, the Iraq War was weeks old and support for it, along with the president, was quite high. Check out video from that night where Vedder sings the song while holding a Bush mask in his hand that he eventually impales on a mic stand.<\/p>\n

Long Island may be extremely close to New York City, but it\u2019s significantly more conservative and Vedder faced a torrent of boos during the bit. \u201cI don\u2019t understand,\u201d he said afterwards. \u201cMaybe you like him because he\u2019s going to give you a tax cut. Maybe you like him because he\u2019s a real guy that relates to you because he\u2019s so down home.\u201d The crowd then begins chanting \u201cU.S.A.!\u201d over and over. \u201cI\u2019m with you,\u201d Vedder says. \u201cU.S.A. I just think that all of us in this room should have a voice in how the U.S.A. is represented and he didn\u2019t allow us our voice. That\u2019s all I\u2019m saying.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe love America,\u201d he continued. \u201cI\u2019m standing in front of a stage in front of a big crowd. I worked at a goddamn drug store. I love America, right? This is good. This is open, honest debate. That\u2019s what it should be. If we keep this back and forth, good things will happen. If you don\u2019t say anything, you don\u2019t know what\u2019ll happen. Because we are on the brink of forever. If we don\u2019t participate with where this thing is going when we\u2019re the number-one superpower in the world \u2026 you want to have a part in it and make sure it\u2019s the right thing. Plus or minus, be active. This is a good thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

They followed up the song with covers of the Clash\u2019s \u201cKnow Your Rights\u201d and Neil Young\u2019s \u201cRockin\u2019 in the Free World\u201d before wrapping up the show. The incident made the news and caused a brief fan backlash, but it was nothing like the Dixie Chicks were facing at the time. The previous month, they told an audience in London that they were \u201cembarrassed\u201d that Bush was from Texas. It was a very brief statement, but it went viral and did enormous damage to their careers. Albums were bulldozed, country radio stopped playing their songs and they were called vicious names by right-wing pundits.<\/p>\n

The incident was just a very minor speed bump for Pearl Jam, but they haven\u2019t played \u201cBu$hleaguer\u201d a single time in the past 13 years. (Message aside, it\u2019s just not that great a song. Also, playing it in the post-Bush era doesn\u2019t make a lot of sense.)<\/p>\n

Pearl Jam are still supposed to begin a European tour in late June, but that seems like an iffy proposition at this point. Whenever they play again, we\u2019ll see if Vedder has a Trump mask in hand when they break into \u201cQuick Escape.\u201d The boos probably won\u2019t be quite as loud this time.<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone <\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pearl Jam are releasing their new album Gigaton tomorrow, but this isn\u2019t exactly how they envisioned release week when they plotted it out late last year. They were supposed to be four shows into a North American arena tour by now with a special gig tonight at New York\u2019s Apollo Theater that would be broadcast […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2456350","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-06 17:15:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2456350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2456350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2456350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2456350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2456350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}