Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder claimed in a new interview with Bill Simmons that Dennis Rodman brought him last minute to a Jane’s Addiction show in Las Vegas on their 1997 reunion tour. Rodman and the Bulls were in town to play the Seattle SuperSonics the next night, and Rodman’s security guard gave Vedder three plane tickets to Vegas.
“I said, ‘What the f*** is that?’ I thought we were going to go up, I brought a book,'” a chuckling Vedder recalled, as he had planned to do some reading that night. “And he said, ‘Jane’s Addiction is playing in Las Vegas.’ And I’m like, ‘Jesus Christ, it’s like f***ing six o’clock. He’s like, ‘We’ll get there by 9, they don’t go on until 9:30.'”
“We end up going through the f***ing Seattle Airport. I mean, old ladies loved Dennis Rodman. I mean, we’re just like running through the airport. People are like creating a running trail behind him like this river,” he reminisced. “Dennis! Dennis!’ [they’re] screaming. And he’s going, ‘Eddie Vedder right here! Eddie Vedder right here!’ He’s pointing at me.”
He said when they got to the show, Rodman had a good time. “Dennis looks over at me and he goes, ‘It’s relaxing, right?”
Vedder said about Rodman’s Pearl Jam fandom, “He would put on our [Pearl Jam’s] music and watch the [NBA game] tapes, put on his music and watch the tapes.”
Vedder also revealed that it was no coincidence that Rodman was one of the leading rebounders in the NBA at the time. “That guy worked so hard. There was all the… the wedding dress and all the stuff he would do, but man, that guy worked hard.”
In case you missed it, be sure to catch “The Last Dance” documentary. The 10-part series features great music throughout, including Pearl Jam’s “Present Tense.” All 10 episodes are now available to replay on the ESPN App in the United States and outside the U.S. on Netflix.
