I went to court with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder in New Orleans. It wasn't what I expected.

Ahead of the band's headlining performance at the 2025 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, a look back at the singer's afternoon at Tulane and Broad

Pearl Jam rocked in the ‘Free World’ and beyond at the 2016 New Orleans Jazz Fest _lowres

Advocate staff photo by MATTHEW HINTON--Pearl Jam performs on the Acura Stage on the second day of the Jazz Fest in New Orleans, La. Saturday, April 23, 2016.▲

Pearl Jam rocked in the ‘Free World’ and beyond at the 2016 New Orleans Jazz Fest _lowres

Advocate staff photo by MATTHEW HINTON--Pearl Jam performs on the Acura Stage on the second day of the Jazz Fest in New Orleans, La. Saturday, April 23, 2016.▲

BY KEITH SPERA | Staff writer

8 hrs ago

The only time I’ve ever spoken to Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder was in court.

Specifically, Division C of Orleans Parish Municipal Court.

I hadn’t expected to find him there on the afternoon of Aug. 16, 1994. I’d been tipped off that his trial on a simple battery charge from a drunken Decatur Street brawl the previous November was scheduled for that day.

But surely he'd just send an attorney to ask for a continuance, or to enter a plea and pay a fine, right?

Surely the singer of one of the world’s biggest rock bands wouldn’t be there in person to deal with a misdemeanor.

As I soon discovered, Vedder very much wanted to be there.

Decatur Street 'slam-Jam'

In the fall of 1993, Pearl Jam and Nirvana stood at the forefront of the grunge revolution, which essentially remade the rock industry. Pearl Jam’s second album, “Vs.,” released on Oct. 19, 1993, sold almost a million copies in its first week — a record that stood for years.

Vedder emerged as the reluctant poster boy of grunge. He graced the cover of the Oct. 25, 1993, issue of Time magazine, with the tag line, “Angry young rockers like Pearl Jam give voice to the passions and fears of a generation.”

Four weeks later, in November 1993, Pearl Jam arrived in New Orleans for three sold-out concerts at the UNO Lakefront Arena. While in town, Vedder and company also recorded two songs for their third album at producer Daniel Lanois’ Kingsway Studio on Esplanade Avenue.

In the pre-dawn hours of Nov. 18, Vedder and his pal Jack McDowell, a Cy Young Award-winning pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, decided to blow off a little steam on lower Decatur Street.

Around 4:30 a.m., they got into an altercation with a Terrytown waiter and a bouncer at the Crystal nightclub, which was previously called the Blue Crystal. Shoving and spitting escalated to punches. McDowell was knocked unconscious and went to the hospital for stitches. Vedder went to jail, booked with public drunkenness and disturbing the peace.

Hours later, he posted a $600 cash bail and was released. Years later, he reminisced about the incident onstage at the 2010 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, noting that, if you have enough money for your own bail and someone else's, “you'll never see a happier 85-year-old toothless man.”

He's referenced his night in a New Orleans jail other times. He may bring it up again when Pearl Jam headlines Jazz Fest again on Saturday.

An account of Vedder’s brawl made national news; a story ran on the front page of the Nov. 19 Times-Picayune under the headline “Slam Jam." That night, Pearl Jam played its third and final show at the Lakefront Arena, then left town.

And that, it seemed, was that.

A quick dismissal

The following summer, I was working for the monthly entertainment magazine OffBeat. My girlfriend at the time was an intern at a local TV station.

One evening, she answered the phone at the station and got a tip: On Aug. 16, Vedder would appear in Municipal Court to be tried on a simple battery charge.

I seriously doubted Vedder would be there in person.

But on the afternoon of Aug. 16, I went to the courthouse at Tulane and Broad, just in case. And lo and behold, there was Vedder sitting in the Division C courtroom, having swapped out his trademark T-shirt and flannel for a sport coat and slacks.

Maybe two dozen people were in the courtroom. I was the only journalist.

Thirty years later, it’s difficult to imagine how one of the world’s most famous rock stars could have shown up in court anywhere in the country almost undetected.

But this was pre-cell phone, pre-YouTube, pre-TMZ, pre-internet. Secrets were more easily kept.

Prominent local defense attorney Frank DeSalvo represented Vedder, but he didn’t need to do much.

After the waiter and the bouncer testified, the prosecution rested its case. Judge John Shea immediately dismissed the charge against Vedder, citing the witnesses’ lack of credibility.

The singer wasn’t as elated as you might expect. When I approached him in the courtroom, he expressed disappointment that he didn’t get to tell his side of the story publicly. He was frustrated that he’d come to New Orleans only to not testify.

“It was kind of a pain in the ass,” he said.

With that, Vedder signed an autograph for a grade school girl and gave her a hug. As he hustled out a back door of the courtroom, someone from his defense team jokingly asked if he wanted to go buy a round at the Crystal.

I now had the “exclusive” on Vedder’s trial, but no way to get the story out quickly. OffBeat was a monthly publication with no online presence.

I sometimes wrote freelance music stories for The Times-Picayune. So I called Scott Aiges, the paper’s staff music writer, and told him about the trial. Like me, he was stunned that Vedder was there in person. Unlike me, he hadn't heard anything about it.

Aiges called Judge Shea at home, then quickly wrote a story for the Picayune that was picked up by the wire services.

With that, the world found out that Eddie Vedder had been vindicated in a New Orleans courtroom.

He's been rockin' in the free world ever since.

Email Keith Spera at kspera@theadvocate.com.

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