Pearl Jam has rescheduled its planned March 26, 2020 show at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater for Sept. 10 and will broadcast it live on its long-running SiriusXM channel Pearl Jam Radio as part of the company’s Small Stage Series.
The performance at the intimate, 1,500-capacity venue will be open only to SiriusXM subscribers and contest winners and will take place the day before a previously announced concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Pearl Jam’s fall North American tour begins Sept. 1 in Quebec City, Quebec, in support of its 2020 album Gigaton.
Originally planned for the day before the release of Gigaton, the Apollo gig was scrapped due to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, which also forced several postponements of the Gigaton tour. Pearl Jam hasn’t performed in a New York venue as small as the Apollo since a pseudo-release show for its self-titled Avocado album on May 5, 2006 at the 1,200-capacity Irving Plaza.
Frontman Eddie Vedder spoke about the Apollo show in a September 2020 interview on Pearl Jam Radio, calling it “formidable … just because of the history of the place, and our reverence for that history. The opportunity to play that stage, we did not take it lightly. For me, I think the band feels like we got tickets to that show. We were trying to schedule a Howard Stern interview, and I was excited about that as well. You know, play the Apollo, have a few drinks, sleep it off the next day, and then talk to Howard the next day. I was ready. He’s a great interviewer.” Vedder eventually went on the air with Stern that November.
Pearl Jam has also unveiled a video for the Gigaton track “Quick Escape” directed by Samuel Bayer, best known for his work on Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” clip. Bayer’s son Ziggy appears in the clip alongside stuntman Eddie Braun.
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Pearl Jam is in the midst of its first European tour since 2018 and will perform tonight (July 14) in Krakow.
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