Jeff Ament Unsure About a Tour Where Pearl Jam Are ‘Checking Vaccination Cards’
Pearl Jam won’t return to the road until 2022 after having paused their touring last year out of safety concerns surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. But recently envisioning the rockers’ first gigs backs, bassist Jeff Ament was uncertain about having concerts where vaccination cards were required to attend.
In a new conversation with radio personality Kyle Meredith, the Pearl Jam member went deep on his and the band’s career — also revealing that the group recently got together for a jam session — before questioning the idea of a Pearl Jam shows adopting the much-discussed notion of “vaccine passports.”
Watch the video down toward the bottom of this post.
During the interview, Ament revealed that “three weeks, four weeks ago in Seattle,” the members of Pearl Jam all “just got in a room. We weren’t playing any songs. We just jammed, and it was so beautiful. I just missed that so much. And we talked a little bit just about how everybody was feeling.” [via Blabbermouth]
He added of the band’s future plans, “We have a few things penciled in for next year. Hopefully this variant and whatever’s going on with the vaccinations and all that stuff, hopefully, we’ve turned a corner. It feels like we’re sort of still teetering on the edge of this thing. If we turn a corner, then hopefully we hit late winter, early spring with a tour, or a leg, at least. We’re jonesing to do it. And most of the shows that we have to make up for — the two legs, the European leg and the U.S. leg — most of those shows, they’re indoors.”
Pearl Jam fans itching to see the band perform have plenty of past concerts to choose from at the group’s new digital concert archive called Deep. But for now, it’s clear the band’s waiting on the coronavirus picture to become clearer before resuming postponed concerts.
“I just don’t know if I wanna go out and do 30 shows where you’re checking vaccination cards,” Ament said. “Hopefully, we can be smart enough that, again, we can just turn a corner and, by March, we’re rocking, and everybody can feel good about traveling and getting 20,000 people into [a venue].”
Gigaton, Pearl Jam’s 11th studio album, came out last year. See the band’s 2022 tour dates here.