When/How did you discover Pearl Jam?

Chrisilein

1992...always bought CDs based on excellent ratings in a music magazine. They rated TEN...5/5 stars

MR242791

jacquelynca said:

The year, 1992.  I was in 5th grade, I was at my friend Felicia's house sitting on her bed and she popped in the 10 cassette tape.  It was the song Porch that got me.  Crazy but that is a moment in time I will never forget.  I grew up listening to all my parents music (genesis, pink floyd, led zeppelin, fleetwood mac etc) and my dad would always say his generations music was the best and nothing will ever top it.  But, when I heard PJ for the first time I thought...I need to get this tape and I can't wait to show my dad this music...MY music, MY generation.  A couple years later he took me to the 1994 Bridge School Benefit Concert.  This band and this music means so much to me.  

wow nice! you got hooked really young. it's so cool you got to see PJ in the 90's.   i think all generations think their music is the best.  I think it's cause we relate our youth and the music of our youth to all the hopes and dreams we have while we're young.  I think the 80's and 90's have the best music cause those were the years i was kid/teenager.  PJ is my favorite though. 

MR242791

I love reading all the comments. 

andyfarrimond

2006 - one of my friends from the old U2 Zootopia fan club convinced me to give them a listen - never been the same since.

Eddieredder

Heard Alive on KISW (Seattle) in the summer of 91 . Bought the tape the next day.........and every album after that, the day it came out. 

tschav

MTV > Jeremy video > jaw dropped > second album I ever owned and surprisingly haven't destroyed that CD from overplaying it throughout the 90's. Didn't see them until I was 18 at Alpine valley in '98. Still kept following them but didn't see them again until '03, and try to see them at least once a year if they stop in the midwest.

helplessdancer

i discovered nothing. pj were hard to ignore when they first came out on the radio everywhere

smithnic

We were on a trip to an amusement park with a youth group from a church and the van broke down.  I think I was 15 so this had to be 1995.  The van breaks and I'm desperate for something to listen to and my friend had Ten.  I remember listening to Once literally like 25 times in a row.  We finally get home around 1-2 AM and I kept the CD and wore it out.  Desperate to find anything by the band I was hooked.  I was still too young to go to any 96 show but I skipped two days of senior year in 1998 (one day to get the wristband and the next to get the tickets) drove 80 miles each way and saw them in August of 1998 and remember my first thought was that I couldn't believe that they were real!  Been hooked ever since and just got home in Richmond, VA from Missoula. 

MR242791

smithnic said:

We were on a trip to an amusement park with a youth group from a church and the van broke down.  I think I was 15 so this had to be 1995.  The van breaks and I'm desperate for something to listen to and my friend had Ten.  I remember listening to Once literally like 25 times in a row.  We finally get home around 1-2 AM and I kept the CD and wore it out.  Desperate to find anything by the band I was hooked.  I was still too young to go to any 96 show but I skipped two days of senior year in 1998 (one day to get the wristband and the next to get the tickets) drove 80 miles each way and saw them in August of 1998 and remember my first thought was that I couldn't believe that they were real!  Been hooked ever since and just got home in Richmond, VA from Missoula. 

wow great story! Once, another great PJ song.

MR242791

helplessdancer said:

i discovered nothing. pj were hard to ignore when they first came out on the radio everywhere

true.  I remember the Jeremy video was controversial.  I remember watching the video with my High school friends and not understanding the end and my friends had to explain it to me.  lol.  that was probably 92 or 93.

blackhawks

My brother turned me on to them in October 91.  He said I had to attend this show where he was going to college in Ames, Iowa.  He got 4th row tickets and the venue was a theater that holds 3000 or so.  10 was just out and he played it for me and I thought it was really solid.  Anyhow, I was staying at the Best Western in Ames and Eddie, Flea were swimming in the pool and having fun with other members of all the bands on the ticket (PJ, Smashing Pumpkins, Chili Peppers).  We were drinking beers at the pool and it was a real fun and laid back experience.  At the show PJ was first and blew the roof off the joint.  I was a fan after that performance!  Funny thing is Billy Corgan punched his guitar tech in the face when he came off stage for some reason after their set.  That show will always be memorable as it was the last time I saw one of my good friends alive unfortunately.  But it was a great introduction to PJ and I have been a fan since seeing them many many times.  

MR242791

blackhawks said:

My brother turned me on to them in October 91.  He said I had to attend this show where he was going to college in Ames, Iowa.  He got 4th row tickets and the venue was a theater that holds 3000 or so.  10 was just out and he played it for me and I thought it was really solid.  Anyhow, I was staying at the Best Western in Ames and Eddie, Flea were swimming in the pool and having fun with other members of all the bands on the ticket (PJ, Smashing Pumpkins, Chili Peppers).  We were drinking beers at the pool and it was a real fun and laid back experience.  At the show PJ was first and blew the roof off the joint.  I was a fan after that performance!  Funny thing is Billy Corgan punched his guitar tech in the face when he came off stage for some reason after their set.  That show will always be memorable as it was the last time I saw one of my good friends alive unfortunately.  But it was a great introduction to PJ and I have been a fan since seeing them many many times.  

wow that's an amazing story.  if only PJ would be swimming at the pool of my three star hotel...
sorry for you loss

jacquelynca

MR242791 said:

jacquelynca said:

The year, 1992.  I was in 5th grade, I was at my friend Felicia's house sitting on her bed and she popped in the 10 cassette tape.  It was the song Porch that got me.  Crazy but that is a moment in time I will never forget.  I grew up listening to all my parents music (genesis, pink floyd, led zeppelin, fleetwood mac etc) and my dad would always say his generations music was the best and nothing will ever top it.  But, when I heard PJ for the first time I thought...I need to get this tape and I can't wait to show my dad this music...MY music, MY generation.  A couple years later he took me to the 1994 Bridge School Benefit Concert.  This band and this music means so much to me.  

wow nice! you got hooked really young. it's so cool you got to see PJ in the 90's.   i think all generations think their music is the best.  I think it's cause we relate our youth and the music of our youth to all the hopes and dreams we have while we're young.  I think the 80's and 90's have the best music cause those were the years i was kid/teenager.  PJ is my favorite though. 

I know!  It was a turning point in my life, that was the moment I started becoming my own...figuring out who I was.  Pearl Jam is a big part of who I am, and thank GOD I found them that young, there are times in my life I don't know what I would have done without music and I am forever grateful  

FinsburyParkCarrots

About November 1991 for me. They were on the telly.

Hawkshore

MonkeyDan72 said:

Late 91 via vinyl
lolla 92 Dallas, Tx first live show
never stopped since 
My first 2 live PJ shows 92,95 they played Sonic Reducer.
I have now seen Sonic Reducer six times, and I’d appreciate if I could finish off Riot Act during Wrigley.

Get Right & Ghost night one
Can’t Keep & Thumbing My Way to open the second set night two. 

What PJ vinyl did you have in 91?

My first time live was also Lolla 92 in Vancouver amazing intensity

Pap

I listened to my first Pearl Jam tape (Live On Two Legs) back in 1998, thanks to my older brother. The first song that I listened to, was Do The Evolution (#13). I was 10 years old when I "stole" the then cassette from my brother. I listened to the tape about 1000 times, always changing the side on cassette recorder when it hit the end. I just couldn't get enough. Vedder's voice was something out of this world. And it still is.

wobbler_kitty

When the Alive vid first hit MTV. I was 14 or 15, my BFF in high school and I were HOOKED as soon as we saw it. Think either she or her boyfriend got the Ten CD, I was still rocking cassettes for their first few albums. (Had the early Vs cassette that had ‘Five Against One’ printed on it with the cover that had no album title, that got released right as they were changing the album title to Vs. Probably still packed away in mom’s attic.)

Then the Evenflow vid came out and they blew up even more. Back then, when MTV actually played music, they would hype up new vids coming out from big bands as ‘World Premiere!!’ type stuff. Like, if this was your favorite band, you would make plans to sit at home when the time came for it to be shown. We waited in front of the tv with baited breath for the Jeremy vid premiere. My BFF, her family and myself were fucking SPEECHLESS after. We recorded it (yes, on that thing called a VCR) and watched it over and over, analyzing everything.

This was a REALLY big deal back then. Super controversial. After that you could only see the unedited version on occasion, late at night and with warnings and shit. Obviously a big enough impact on the guys to make them take a step back and stop making vids for a few more albums. I’ll never forget just how poignant that vid was, how much of an impact it made, on me, the music world and the band at that time. They’ve been my favorite band since.

jacquelynca

MR242791 said:

blackhawks said:

My brother turned me on to them in October 91.  He said I had to attend this show where he was going to college in Ames, Iowa.  He got 4th row tickets and the venue was a theater that holds 3000 or so.  10 was just out and he played it for me and I thought it was really solid.  Anyhow, I was staying at the Best Western in Ames and Eddie, Flea were swimming in the pool and having fun with other members of all the bands on the ticket (PJ, Smashing Pumpkins, Chili Peppers).  We were drinking beers at the pool and it was a real fun and laid back experience.  At the show PJ was first and blew the roof off the joint.  I was a fan after that performance!  Funny thing is Billy Corgan punched his guitar tech in the face when he came off stage for some reason after their set.  That show will always be memorable as it was the last time I saw one of my good friends alive unfortunately.  But it was a great introduction to PJ and I have been a fan since seeing them many many times.  

wow that's an amazing story.  if only PJ would be swimming at the pool of my three star hotel...
sorry for you loss

Holy crap that is an awesome story!  Sorry about your friend

JH6056

blackhawks said:

My brother turned me on to them in October 91.  He said I had to attend this show where he was going to college in Ames, Iowa.  He got 4th row tickets and the venue was a theater that holds 3000 or so.  10 was just out and he played it for me and I thought it was really solid.  Anyhow, I was staying at the Best Western in Ames and Eddie, Flea were swimming in the pool and having fun with other members of all the bands on the ticket (PJ, Smashing Pumpkins, Chili Peppers).  We were drinking beers at the pool and it was a real fun and laid back experience.  At the show PJ was first and blew the roof off the joint.  I was a fan after that performance!  Funny thing is Billy Corgan punched his guitar tech in the face when he came off stage for some reason after their set.  That show will always be memorable as it was the last time I saw one of my good friends alive unfortunately.  But it was a great introduction to PJ and I have been a fan since seeing them many many times.  

Wow that is one hell of an introduction! How do you even move on from there?

Btw don't even get me started on Billy Corgan. He's STILL sore that PJ took off the way they did, and still never gives them credit for actually being that talented and deserving the focus.  Smashing Pumpkins are talented too, but he's such a hater.  Over it.

I'm not a big fan of cell phones or the obsession with recording everything, but is it bad to say that I wish you'd had a smart phone at that pool?  Ooops, did I say that out loud? =D

MR242791

wobbler_kitty said:

When the Alive vid first hit MTV. I was 14 or 15, my BFF in high school and I were HOOKED as soon as we saw it. Think either she or her boyfriend got the Ten CD, I was still rocking cassettes for their first few albums. (Had the early Vs cassette that had ‘Five Against One’ printed on it with the cover that had no album title, that got released right as they were changing the album title to Vs. Probably still packed away in mom’s attic.)

Then the Evenflow vid came out and they blew up even more. Back then, when MTV actually played music, they would hype up new vids coming out from big bands as ‘World Premiere!!’ type stuff. Like, if this was your favorite band, you would make plans to sit at home when the time came for it to be shown. We waited in front of the tv with baited breath for the Jeremy vid premiere. My BFF, her family and myself were fucking SPEECHLESS after. We recorded it (yes, on that thing called a VCR) and watched it over and over, analyzing everything.

This was a REALLY big deal back then. Super controversial. After that you could only see the unedited version on occasion, late at night and with warnings and shit. Obviously a big enough impact on the guys to make them take a step back and stop making vids for a few more albums. I’ll never forget just how poignant that vid was, how much of an impact it made, on me, the music world and the band at that time. They’ve been my favorite band since.

I never saw the unedited version of Jeremy I think until like a few minutes ago on youtube.  when i was a teen in the 90's I didn't have MTV. so i only saw the video at a friends house and at that time it had already been edited so the end of the video was confusing to me. but my friends explained to me what happens at the end of the video.  I just remember feeling really bad for Jeremy.