Pearl Jam pays tribute to former Victoria venue Harpo’s at tour-opening show
The bond between Pearl Jam and Victoria dates back more than 30 years, to a time when the iconic Seattle rock band was still in its infancy.
It’s a relationship that still has meaning for frontman Eddie Vedder, who paid tribute to the long-defunct Victoria venue Harpo’s Cabaret and its founder and former co-owner, Gary Van Buskirk, during Pearl Jam’s tour-opening performance in Vancouver on Saturday.
He recalled playing in Victoria “in a little place called Harpo’s,” the iconic live music venue that operated from 1975 until 1995 in Bastion Square.
“If anybody here knows the guy, his name is Gary — he ran the place. Just tell him I say hi, if you happen to see him,” the singer said from the stage.
Praise for Harpo’s is not a new phenomenon. The venue hosted early concerts by everyone from Green Day and No Doubt to the Red Hot Chili Peppers during the 1980s and early ’90s, and has achieved almost mythical status on the West Coast for its ground-breaking bookings.
Vedder and his bandmates played the venue twice in 1991 — once when they were known as Mookie Blaylock, and a second time as headliners when they had become Pearl Jam and were touring in support of their debut album, Ten.
Van Buskirk does not do interviews, but spoke to the Times Colonist briefly on Monday, after news of his name being mentioned in concert by Vedder made its way to him.
“I’m just surprised by everything so far,” he said.
Van Buskirk and Marcus Pollard booked Harpo’s together for the majority of its run, including the Pearl Jam dates. The two friends took the ferry Monday to Vancouver, with plans to see Pearl Jam perform during the second of two concerts at Rogers Arena, dates which kicked off the band’s 35-date world tour.
Vedder, 59, was clearly in a melancholy mood Saturday, so a reunion with Pollard and Buskirk wouldn’t be out of the question. In a review of the Saturday concert by Vancouver Sun reporter Shawn Conner, it was reported that Vedder also mentioned early Pearl Jam shows in Vancouver.
The band’s guitarist, Mike McCready, said in a 2011 interview with the Times Colonist that he remembers concerts in Victoria and Vancouver fondly, and wasn’t surprised when live footage from Vancouver in 1991 was used in Pearl Jam Twenty, the 2011 documentary about the band.
“You can see how Eddie is transforming as a singer,” McCready told the Times Colonist. “We were just learning, as a young band, how to play shows.”
Oscar-nominated director and reporter Cameron Crowe, who helmed Pearl Jam Twenty, formed much of his 1993 cover story on the band for Rolling Stone magazine around its Mookie Blaylock performance at Harpo’s, which has helped the show achieve immortality around these parts.
Firsthand accounts of the fourth show ever by Mookie Blaylock, and first ever outside of Seattle, have morphed in the decades since it took place. According to some, it was a poor performance by Vedder. Van Buskirk, however, saw something prophetic in the unknown singer.
That explains why the Pearl Jam frontman is fêting him years after the fact, Pollard said.
“Gary saw something in Eddie that no one else did. They connected on a soul level.” Several months afterward, the newly minted Pearl Jam began its skyward ascent, becoming one of the most popular rock bands in history.
Van Buskirk and Pollard left Harpo’s in the mid-’90s, and the club eventually changed its name and owners. Today, the venue is operating as Upstairs nightclub. But its legend as a live music venue lives on, thanks to bands like Pearl Jam.