Pearl Jam will headline two European festivals this summer, announcing its first performances of 2024 on Monday.
On July 11, the Seattle grunge icons are scheduled to headline Mad Cool Festival in Madrid, Spain, alongside Dua Lipa, Janelle Monáe, Avril Lagine, Greta Van Fleet and the Smashing Pumpkins, according to a series of tweets posted Monday on Pearl Jam’s X account. The band accompanied the announcement with a clip of its 1994 song, “Better Man.”
A few days after launching the tour, the “Alive” and “Black” musicians plan to head to Lisbon, Portugal, to play the NOS Alive festival on July 13. Lipa and the Smashing Pumpkins will follow them west and they’ll also be joined by the Grammy-nominated Black Pumas, music trio Khruangbin and the ensemble act Floating Points.
Pearl Jam said pre-sale for Mad Cool starts Tuesday. The general sale begins Friday.
The band is likely to announce other upcoming shows for 2024 at a later date. It wrapped this year’s tour in September with a pair of shows in Austin, Texas. The 2023 tour was briefly interrupted by an “illness” that prompted them to cancel a Sept. 10 show in Indianapolis. Injured vocal chords and coronavirus infections also kept Pearl Jam and lead singer Eddie Vedder from other dates throughout 2022.
When announcing its 2023 tour earlier this year, Pearl Jam promised more transparency around ticket sales and implemented “all-in pricing.” The Ticketmaster system shows a buyer the full price, including processing fees, upfront, “so there are no surprises at check out.”
They made the commitment amid an uproar among fans against the ticketing titan, largely coalescing around Ticketmaster’s bungled rollout of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour last year. Fans have since taken the live entertainment giant to court.
In December 2022, Taylor Swift fans filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster’s parent company, Live Nation Entertainment Inc., for alleged fraud, price-fixing and antitrust law violations while selling advance tickets to Swift’s Eras Tour.
An investigation by the Department of Justice and a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing — rife with Swift lyrics — followed a month later. Then, in March, fans of rapper Drake reportedly filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster, accusing the company of inflating ticket prices.
At the height of its fame, Pearl Jam famously sued Ticketmaster in 1994, accusing the company of holding a monopoly over ticket distribution in the U.S. The lawsuit prompted a federal investigation and congressional hearing, but the case eventually failed.
The band — comprising original members Vedder, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, along with former Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron — has continued to tour each year since filing their complaint, only going on hiatus between 2018 and 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pearl Jam was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017.
