Eddie Vedder did some “deep soul-searching” after nine people were killed at a Pearl Jam show.
In 2000, the group played the Roskilde Festival in Denmark as part of their European tour. Organisers asked the group to stop playing due to crowd concerns, but they didn’t do so at first.
Nine people were crushed to death and Eddie says it was one of the most difficult things the rock band ever dealt with.
“I disappeared for a year. I had to do some deep soul-searching on my own. I did a solitary process that I felt like I had to go through. I couldn’t go about business as usual because that would’ve been going around the issues. I had to go through them,” he explained.
Eddie wondered if the group should continue after the tragedy.
He has thanked Pete Townshend and Roger Daltry for their support, revealing he was in a “foetal position” after the tragedy.
“The day of the and the day after [were the hardest],” he told Q magazine. “You can’t go 30 seconds without thinking about it. After a week, you could maybe go a minute without thinking about it. After a month, you could maybe go three minutes. You were constantly brought back there.”
