IF YOU don't have tickets to see Pearl Jam in San Jose on Nov. 4, don't worry. You may be able to hear the show broadcast live on a pirate-radio station sponsored by the band.
Again, Pearl Jam has stepped beyond conventional boundaries to bring something to its fans. And in doing so, it has shown why it is the greatest rock band of this generation -- and maybe ever.
I'm not talking about music here. That is debatable, although surely PearlJam is among the best.
But in terms of the spirit of rock, the ethos, the feeling that performers can make money and still give plenty back to the public, this band has yet to be topped.
Pearl Jam has genuinely maintained 1960s ideals. It has tried to pave the way for other bands to follow.
Last year, it fought the Ticketmaster monopoly in a battle that was misunderstood by some but was an honest effort to buck a system that is ripping off the public.
Since January, Pearl Jam has been setting up a pirate station in an orange van that follows the tour and broadcasts music, interviews and live shows.
San Jose native David Meinert, 29, is one of the powers behind what the band calls "Monkey Wrench Radio."
Meinert and his partner, James Lane, who work for the band's manager, Kelly Curtis, have built their radio transmitting equipment themselves. They have had varied luck with their transmissions, reaching 20 miles at a Labor Day festival in Seattle and only a few miles from a concert site in Sacramento.
The transmission of a July show in Chicago has been made into bootleg albums, another thing that Pearl Jam, unlike more greedy and less talented performers, approves of.
The pirate broadcasts came together after a January satellite-radio show broadcast by Pearl Jam and its singer, Eddie Vedder, in which radio stations across the country basically turned over their transmitters for whatever Vedder felt like saying and playing.
It was amazingly refreshing, compared to most of what passes for commercial radio these days.
The show gave the band a taste of free access to the airwaves.
"My philosophy is that the media is too controlled by large corporations," says Meinert, who was contacted by the band. "What you hear on radio is very limited. The public is too much a consumer of media and not a maker of media. This is a way to give you some creative input into it."
Vedder, who regularly gives out his home phone number to fans, will broadcast a cellular phone number during the radio shows so people can talk to him on the air.
The shows also promote other pirate stations, such as Free Radio Berkeley (104.1), which has been in a court battle with the Federal Communications Commission over its unlicensed transmissions.
The FCC contends it has power to restrict access to the airwaves. The Berkeley station's founder, Steve Dunifer, contends that the public owns the airwaves and has a right to set up community stations on vacant frequencies.
"I prefer to call it free radio or rebel radio," Dunifer says. "The FCC uses `pirate' in a pejorative sense. `Pirate' implies stealing something that belongs to someone else. We feel the airwaves belong to the people of this country."
Dunifer salutes what Vedder and his band have done and says that, if the FCC decided to take on the band, it would bring a huge amount of publicity to the plight of free stations.
"There are so many performers who will never be heard on commercial stations," he says. "There are so many people who will never have a voice, except on community stations like this."
Meinert agrees. "Is this illegal?" he asks when I question him about whether he fears theFCC. "I think that it's a morally decent thing to be doing. That's my position on it."
He plans to set up Monkey Wrench Radio at either 88.1 or 89.1 on the FM dial, starting next Friday, a day before Pearl Jam performs at Spartan Stadium. He expects to continue his broadcast through the show and after. Usually Vedder and other band mates stop by to chat and play records.
Meinert says he is 90 percent certain that the band's concert will be broadcast. The only things that could stop it would be equipment failure or unforeseen circumstances, which with pirate radio is always a possibility.
There's already a reaction from some commercial stations in the area, resentful that Pearl Jam won't cooperate with station promotions. I've heard D.J.s calling the band "Pearl Scam" and coming down on Vedder for getting sick during a Golden Gate Park concert in the summer. This San Jose show is a makeup for that one.
It's sad to see unjust criticism of a band that has consistently gone further than any other to de-commercialize the music and give it, as purely aspossible, to fans.
This is a band that should be saluted for walking the walk. It is one of the few bands that knows the true meaning and power of rock 'n' roll.