Pearl Jam will be releasing recordings from their 2010 shows. The official bootlegs offered by the band will continue a tradition that they began in 2000. In addition, Pearl Jam announced they are launching a web-based radio station called Pearl Jam Radio. According to Pearl Jam’s website, the station will be offering a a continuous stream of studio, rare and live songs.

Starting in the middle of May, their 2010 Bootleg Program is featuring soundboard recordings taken from the current tour of the band in three formats: MP3, FLAC and CD. Pearl Jam’s tour launched at New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival on May 1. On June 22 the band will head over to Europe after a series of US shows.

Pearl Jam will also offer recordings from their four shows they performed in Philadelphia in October at Spectrum arena. Those were the last concerts ever played at the venue. The shows are going to be made available as individual downloads or as a CD. The performances can be pre-ordered as well in limited edition set form, featuring records from all four performances.

Additional information on the band’s new radio stations and bootlegs is listed at PearlJam.com.

Grunge stalwarts Pearl Jam are ready to take to the road to support last fall’s release “Backspacer.” The tour is slated for May and will cover 10 US cities along the east coast and Midwest. The tour kicks off in Kansas City, Missouri on May 2 and runs through a double stop at New York’s Madison Square Garden on May 20 & 21. Band of Horses will provide opening support on all tour stops save the NYC dates. The Black Keys will cover opening responsibilities for these dates. A full listing of Pearl Jam tour dates are listed below.

Pearl Jam Ten Club members will have the first stab at tickets on March 15 at 9am. The regular onsale dates have yet to be released.

Pearl Jam’s latest album “Backspacer” debuted at the number 1 slot on the Billboard album charts when it was released on November 10. The album represents Pearl Jam’s ninth studio release and first since 2006. It was released on their homegrown label Monkeywrench Records.

2010 Pearl Jam Concert Tour
May 2010
3 – Kansas City, MO – Sprint Center
4 – St. Louis, MO – Scottrade Center
6 – Columbus, OH – Nationwide Arena
7 – Noblesville, IN – Verizon Wireless Music Center
9 – Cleveland, OH – Quicken Loans Arena
10 – Buffalo, NY – HSBC Arena
13 – Bristow, VA – Jiffy Lube
15 – Hartford, CT – XL Center
17 – Boston, MA – TD Banknorth Garden
20, 21 – New York, NY – Madison Square Garden

Pearl Jam, Aerosmith and Green Day, along with Skunk Anansie, are some of the first confirmed acts for the 2010 Heineken Jammin Festival. It will take place July 3-6 in Venice Italy at Mestre’s San Guiliano Park. Earlier this week the four acts were announced during a Mestre press conference attended by Venice’s Mayor, Heineken Italy’s Marketing Director, Live Nation Italy/Milano Concerti’s CEO, and Municipalita Mestre Carpendo’s President.

1998 was the first year for the Heineken Jammin Festival event. The headliner was Vasco Rossi. In 2007 the festival became an event of four days and featured acts like Stone Sour, Slayer and Iron Maiden.

The Cranberries and Aerosmith are scheduled for July 3. On July 4, Green Day, Rise Against and 30 Seconds to Mars are scheduled. On July 5, Massive Attack and Black Eyed Peas are set to perform. On July 6, Pearl Jam, Wolfmother, Gossip, Skunk Anansie and Ben Harper will wrap up the festivities. The lineup for the 2010 Heineken Jammin Festival is subject to change.

It’s hard to image as winter gets a firm foothold, but the sultry, spring New Orleans Jazz Festival is just around the corner. The festival is headlined by heavyweight music acts like Pearl Jam, Van Morrison, Widespread Panic, The Black Crowes and My Morning Jacket. The 2010 edition of the New Orleans Jazz Festival marks the 41st running of the classic music event that features an eclectic blend of musical genres from rock and pop to gospel and blues.

The festival will take place over two weekends – April 23-25 and April 29-May 2 — at the New Orleans’ Fair Grounds Race Course. This year’s edition of the festival drew crowds of 40,000 to see first time participant Bon Jovi among other acts.
Other big name acts that will be participating in this year’s festival include Elvis Costello, The Allman Brothers, Aretha Franklin, Lionel Richie, Darius Rucker, Jeff Beck and hundreds of other artists. In addition to featuring nationally known acts, the New Orleans Jazz Festival also highlights local musical acts as well as food and craft booths.

Tickets went onsale Tuesday (12/15) via Ticketmaster and range in price from $45 for a single day admission to $120 for a three-day package and $160 for a four-day on the second weekend. If you can stomach the sometimes abrasive heat, this event is one not to be missed.

Pearl Jam, The Black Crowes and My Morning Jacket head the lineup that organizers have announced for next year’s New Orleans Jazz Fest 41st edition.

The festival will be held April 23-25 as well as April 29-May 2 at Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans. Also featured will be Darius Rucker, Widespread Panic, Lionel Richie, Van Morrison, Steep Canyon Rangers, Steve Martin, The Allman Brothers Band, Elvis Costello and Aretha Franklin among others.

The event will also be featuring traditional crafts and foods as well as many local acts. Tickets are on sale currently, with several pricing tiers available. These include single day tickets, which cost $45 purchased in advanced. At the gate the cost will be $60.

According to the promoters of the festival, over 400,000 fans attended the 2009 Jazz Fest. Bon Jovi made their first appearance last year at the long-running festival in New Orleans. Their performance was watch by many of the fans.

The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival, since 1970, has featured performers from a wide variety of genres, including zydeco, Cajun, R&B, pop, rock, blues, gospel and jazz.

The edition last year saw the festival return to their seven full programming days. In 2005 the city was trying to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Organizers were forced to eliminate a day in 2006 and 2007.

On October 12th, Eddie Vedder joined Roger Daltrey during his Seattle solo stop on the tour Use It Or Lose It for the second show at Showbox Sodo. Past the mid point of the show Daltrey’s band started to launch into “Better Man” by Pearl Jam, with Vedder joining Daltrey to co-lead on the song’s vocals along with “The Real Me” from the Who. For the encore Vedder returned to the stage and he and Daltrey traded vocals on another Who tune, “Bargain.”

Daltrey changed the show’s set list from opening night. In the Johnny Cash medley he replaced “I Got Stripes” with “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Cache Cache” for “Bargain.” He also added “Giving It All Away,” his solo debut hit from 1973 and added “Shakin’ All Over,” from Johnny Kidd & the Pirates onto “Young Man’s Blues” by Mose Allison.

Simon Townshend, the youngest brother of Pete, is transitioning from the recent Who tours to being part of the backing band for Daltrey, who said he has over the years relied on Simon for his solo performances. He has always been there with me. On stage he is my main man. As a musician I have deep respect for him. I have always felt for him. In another environment without having Pete for a brother, Simon would be a big musical talent. He gets overshadowed by Pete. Simon is a supreme musician.

Daltrey will perform on October 15th at the San Manuel Indian Casino in Highland, California.

For a brief moment, the Pearl Jam concert at the Gibson Amphitheater in Los Angeles last night, witnessed the reunion of Temple of the Dog. Chris Cornell joined the band onstage to perform the 1991 hit song, “Hunger Strike.” The performance included all the Temple of the Dog principal members, including Cornell, Mike McCready, Matt Cameron, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, as well as Eddie Vedder, the background vocalist. It was the first time they had all been together since 2003 when the Seattle grunge superpowers united to perform Reach Down and Hunger Strike in California.

But there’s more to the story. According to Rolling Stone other Soundgarden members, including bassist Ben Shepherd and guitarist Kim Thayil were at the show, along with Cornell, so they could check out Matt Cameron, drummer, pounding on the skins with the new band. The meeting is the first time that the entire band has been publicly seen together in over a decade. Recently Rolling Stone talked with Thayil regarding the possibility of a reunion of Soundgarden and the possibility for fans to get access to unreleased tracks of the band.

Temple of the Dog formed as a one off tribute band after the death of Andrew Wood, singer for Mother Love Bone. Cornell had been a roommate with Wood, and Ament and Gossard were Mother Love Bone members before Pearl Jam was formed after Wood’s death. Eddie Vedder, who had just been hired to front for Pearl Jam, contributed the background vocals as well as splitting the duties of lead singing on the album Hunger Strike, the only album released by Temple of the Dog.

If the reunion performance along with Soundgarden members present in the audience wasn’t enough grunge, Pearl Jam did have another Seattle surprise for Los Angeles. Jerry Cantrell, guitarist for Alice in Chains, was welcomed onto the stage by Pearl Jam during Alive. McCready abandoned his guitar so that Cantrell could do his solo work. When the show ended, all involved bowed to the audience arm in arm.

If I told you that Pearl Jam was going to partner with Target, you might look out your window to check for flying pigs. The Seattle based grunge band, after all, set the bar in terms of not selling out during the 1990s. They protested the exorbitant ticket prices of Ticketmaster and shunned the arena band fortune and fame with everything they had.

However, true to their form, the partnership of the band with the giant discount retailer has been inspired by altruism. Along with Loomstate, an upscale organic clothing line, Pearl Jam has created their own limited edition T-shirt, which is being sold exclusively on Target.com and in Target stores to help raise funds for the program from National Hunger Relief (http://www.feedingamerica.org). All of the t-shirt proceeds will go to benefiting the charity.

The T-shirt, made of 100% organic cotton, features a graphic by Tom Tomorrow of an astronaut who is playing drums in outer space. Tom Tomorrow is the pen name for Dan Perkins, a leftist editorial cartoonist and creator of “This Modern World,” a weekly comic strip. The outer space cartoon, targeting the male fan base of Pearl Jam, was taken from “Backspacer,” Pearl Jam’s new album.

In addition to their retail collaboration, the band is also donated $1 for each ticket that was sold to two recent shows in Seattle for another charity for hunger relief, Food Lifeline. Target, known more for their for profit ventures, matched Pearl Jam’s donation.

It must be hard saying no to someone like Eddie Vedder.

Pearl Jam appears to be on course to grab their first No. 1 album in 13 years on the Billboard 200 next week.

Prognostications by industry experts have suggested that “Backspacer,” the band’s new album that was released on Sunday, will probably sell somewhere between 175,000 to as many as 200,000 copies by the end of the week. This type of sales figure should place them easily ahead of their competition when Billboard’s 200 chart is published on Wednesday for the week ending September 27.

Pearl Jam’s new album, not on a major label for the first time, is being sold in the United States exclusively through iTunes, Target, independent retailers and Pearl Jam’s website.

The last studio release for the group in 2006 bowed out at No. 2 on Billboard’s 200 after selling 279,000 copies, as reported by Nielsen SoundScan. Pearl Jam was last at the No.1 spot in 1996 with “No Code” its third album to top the charts.

Following “No Code” the band has had three No. 2 albums- “Pearl Jam,” Binaural,” and “Yield,” as well as a No. 5 in 2002 with “Riot Act.”

Other albums that are attempting to break in high on Billboard’s 200 chart in the next week include “Life Stars Now” by Three Days Grace, “War is the Answer” from Five Finger Death Punch, “Draw the Line” by David Gray, and “The Boy Who Knew Too Much” from Mika. Currently topping the charts is “The Blueprint 3″ from Jay-Z, which sold a total of 298,000 copies for the week ending September 20.

Elvis Costello, Pearl Jam, and The Dave Matthew Band are among the acts that are scheduled for performances on “Austin City Limits,” the public broadcast musical show, which on October 3 will begin its 35th year.

Other season lineup members include Ben Harper, Willie Nelson, who will perform with Asleep at the Wheel, and Them Crooked Vultures (which is the recently formed super group including Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters, John Paul Jones from Led Zeppelin and Josh Homme, frontman for Queens of the Stone Age).

Two hip hop groups, K’Naan and Mos Def, have been booked for the very first time. Terry Lickona, producer for Austin City Limits said, we have talked about this for a few years. Finally it came together, referring to the show’s expanding into hip hop.