Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder recently reconnected with Rob the cameraman, who unbeknownst to him, may have saved him from dying at the Pinkpop festival in 1992 as he was attempting a dive off a camera crane.
“Back in 1992 we came here and there was a big space. We were playing in small places before, it must have been the first festival we played, so there was this big space between fans and the stage, so I saw this cameraman, and you know what happened next?”
“Someone sent me a postcard with the picture of me jumping from that little thing, and in the picture, there is the cameraman who looks at me like he wants to fuckin’ kill me, and I realize he has every right to do so. I’ve never seen him since, and I see this thing in the hallway of my house and it reminds me of that day, and I wonder what happened to that guy. Is he still pissed off? So when we were in Amsterdam the other night I met a local and asked if there was any way to find him. And we did! And he’s here, he retired in January.
Here is the thing, he told me a completely different story than I had in my mind this whole time. I thought he was so angry at me, but he was having other guys hold that thing to hold the back, the ballast, otherwise when I jumped on and we just would have gone down. So he wasn’t yelling at me, but to other guys to hold us up.
So then to go to the front but not quite, and then when I try to make it, which I felt like I was going to be that short, and forever be this short. When he’s yelling, he’s not yelling at me, he’s yelling into the mic for the guys to jump off the back, because once I jumped he would have gone shooting into the fucking atmosphere. So the whole time, we were working in tandem but we had no clue whatsoever. He hasn’t been angry at me this whole time, and I just feel so fuckin’ forgiven.”
Vedder wore the same shirt he wore at Pinkpop 26 years ago. See video and photos below!
