Eddie Vedder and eccentric former Chicago Bulls star, Dennis Rodman, once flew to Las Vegas and back just to see Jane’s Addiction play live.
In a recent interview, Vedder recalled the incident taking place when the pair were catching up at a Seattle Hotel. Rodman’s team were in town and it was early in the evening.
Vedder said Rodman’s security guard approached him with three aeroplane tickets.
“And I’m like, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s like fuckin’ 6 o’clock,’” Vedder remembered, “he’s like, ‘We’ll get there by 9, they don’t go on until 9:30.’”
Rodman convinced the Pearl Jam frontman and the duo were soon en route to the airport.
“We’re running through the airport. People are creating a running trail behind him, like this river,” Vedder recalled.
The unlikely friends somehow made it to Las Vegas, almost 2,000km away, just in time to see Jane’s Addiction. They sat side-stage while the legendary alternative rock act played.
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Eddie Vedder recalls Rodman leaning over to him and saying, “this is relaxing, right?”
“That’s how on rocket jet fuel he was, that THAT was relaxing,” Vedder laughed.
The duo flew back that night, and Rodman allegedly played against the Sonics the next day in Seattle.
Although Dennis Rodman has long since retired from basketball, Vedder continues to pump out hits with his band, Pearl Jam. Just last week, the band released the video clip for recent single, ‘Retrograde’. The track is the third from their latest album, Gigaton, to merit a music video.
Gigaton, Pearl Jam’s first new album in almost seven years, hit shelves and streaming services in March. Speaking to Rolling Stone earlier in the year, guitarist Stone Gossard commented on the album’s musical diversity.
“There’s definitely some really straight-ahead rock songs,” Gossard said.
“There’s some very spare and very simple ballads. It’s got it all, I think. And it’s really us. We really did it by ourselves.”
Check out Dennis Rodman on stage with Eddie Vedder in 2016:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNifsHI7j_I
