PEARL JAM UPDATE

Eddie and the boys go after the guy who wrote this piece, and they go hard...

"There were close to 12,000 people at the April 1 Denver show. It's possible two dozen left during the encore, but it was not noticeable amongst the 11,976 who were loudly applauding and enjoying the evening's music," the band said in a statement. "It just made a better headline to report otherwise."

The headline in question stemmed from a story by Scripps Howard News Service reporter Mark Brown, who wrote on Wednesday that dozens of angry fans walked out after Vedder's tirade, complaining that he went too far during his anti-Bush song "Bushleaguer" (the lyrics says the President is "not a leader/he's a Texas leaguer"), which concluded the show.

Brown didn't note that some concertgoers traditionally leave during the encore just to beat the traffic. In its statement, Pearl Jam also points out that Brown never mentioned any incensed fans in his review of the concert for the Rocky Mountain News, entitled "Pearl Jam Show Will Make a Great CD."

They go on to defend their rights to that thing, you know, free speech:

"Dissension is nothing we shy away from--it should just be reported about more accurately," the band says. "Ed's talk from the stage centered on the importance of freedom of speech and the importance of supporting our soldiers as well as an expression of sadness over the public being made to feel as though the two sentiments can't occur simultaneously."

They hit the nail on the head here. That's the idea of those who question the "patriotism" of others in this time of unjust war. They want to make a lack of support for the Administraion and its war tantamount to lack of support for the troops. Two separate concepts artificially glued together . . . hmm, sounds like Saddam and Osama to me! This is how they work.