Back in the early 90s, Eddie Vedder‘s reckless stage antics were a huge part of Pearl Jam’s live show. Back in 1992, at the height of the band’s Ten hype, Pearl Jam played Pinkpop Festival, where Vedder performed his most epic stage dive to date.
Footage of the set shows Vedder climbing onto a movable camera riser that lifts him directly over the rambunctious crowd that he launched himself into.
Refresh your memory of the set here:
Recently, the band took to the stage of Pinkpop festival again, where Eddie reminisced about the experience, noting that he’d recently caught up with the cameraman who helped him through the death-defying experience. Vedder explained that he’d wondered whether the cameraman was still “pissed off” for what he did.
“Someone sent me a postcard with the picture of me jumping from that little thing, and in the picture, there is the cameraman who looks at me like he wants to fuckin’ kill me, and I realize he has every right to do so.”
“I’ve never seen him since, and I see this thing in the hallway of my house and it reminds me of that day, and I wonder what happened to that guy. Is he still pissed off?”, Vedder explained
Vedder continued to explain that while the band were in Amsterdam, he met a local who reconnected him with the cameraman, who explained that he didn’t hold anything against Vedder for his actions.
“So when we were in Amsterdam the other night I met a local and asked if there was any way to find him. And we did! And he’s here, he retired in January.
“Here is the thing, he told me a completely different story than I had in my mind this whole time. I thought he was so angry at me, but he was having other guys hold that thing to hold the back, the ballast, otherwise when I jumped on and we just would have gone down. So he wasn’t yelling at me, but to other guys to hold us up”, Vedder said of their meeting.
Pearl Jam recently paid tribute to Chris Cornell where each member wore various pieces of merch in honour of all of Cornell’s projects. The band also recently paid tribute to Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade, where they performed a touching rendition of their track ‘Long Road’.
Watch Pearl Jam perform ‘Long Road’ here:
