Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder recently admitted that the band lost their 90’s legal battle with Ticketmaster over ticket prices in a new interview. During an interview with NY Times, he went on to elaborate on the matter. Recently, Nikki Sixx went after Eddie Vedder and Neil Young.
Eddie Vedder sheds light on the legal battle
The battle dates back to early ’94. Committed to diminishing hidden costs passed on to concert fans and encouraged by their newfound status as America’s best-selling rock act, Pearl Jam had laid down guidelines for their upcoming tour: $1.80 service fees clearly spelled out on $18 tickets.
Ticketmaster was used to charging concertgoers a service fee that was two or three times that amount with fees on top-dollar tickets reaching as high as $18 – and a showdown of between the two was set.
Pearl Jam quickly abandoned their tour plans, and after being prompted by Justice Department officials, they filed an antitrust complaint against Ticketmaster, triggering a federal investigation into the company’s alleged monopoly.
The band claimed that Ticketmaster, after scooping up its competitors, abused its marketplace dominance by collecting sky-high service fees and signing exclusive deals with major concert venues, leaving consumers and artists with no other alternative.
Here is what Vedder said:
“I’m sure there’s been an evolution in everything we do. It used to be youth against establishment and chaining yourself to old-growth trees and seeing how that played out. Then it evolves to how do we actually get things done? Because it seemed like rattling the cages was simply that, and rattling the cages is probably where some of those naïve lyrics came from. But at some point it was like, What do we want to achieve? We started trying to meet with our adversaries to see what could be done: funding the preservation of rainforests to offset carbon emissions. We had the Ticketmaster thing — didn’t work. They made it go away. That was a learning experience. It bruised our muscle of idealism. We were young and naïve and thought you could change things. But just taking on the man and being agitators, it might not be the way.”
