by Josh, Philadelphia, PA

In 1998, Pearl Jam was one of the most popular touring bands in the country. They always put on a dynamic show, always happy to perform for the fans and always changing the setlist from night to night. They had developed quite a core following through websites, newsgroups, and tape trading communities. There was one thing that many of the fans found they had in common: a love for an obscure Pearl Jam song, only ever released on a soundtrack, called Breath.

Breath hadn’t been played live anywhere in four years, and a group of fans wanted to do something about it. So when Pearl Jam came to the New York area for 3 shows in September 1998, a bunch of fans decided to ask the band to play Breath. The “Breath Campaign” consisted of different people printing hundreds and hundreds of signs requesting the song. On the first two nights, the signs made an impact, and it was clear from Eddie Vedder’s reaction that the band knew what was going on. But they didn’t give in. Newspapers picked up the story of the sign campaign as fans decided to try one last time.

On the third night, on September 11th 1998, the last effort at the sign campaign took place. When the band left the stage for the encore break, hundreds of signs went up. When they came back, Eddie unleashed a profanity-laden response to the signs…but you could tell in his voice how much love he had for the fans who cared so much. He described the campaign as “some kind of organized religion here; I’ve never seen anything like it.”

When he declared that the band was going to play the song, the roar from the crowd was unbelievable. Pearl Jam then kicked off one of the best encore performances in rock history, opening with the return of Breath and closing with a performance of Alive so dynamic that Eddie found himself climbing up and then clinging to his own microphone cable, dangling several feet above the stage. A fuller writeup of the story can be found here, and a summary of how some fans felt about the song (before its comeback) can be found here.