Pearl Jam sets dates for Southland shows

Watch this week for an announcement from Pearl Jam about the on-sale dates for its upcoming North American tour, but there is already some information to pass on to fans of the band: The Southern California dates will be June 2 at the Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Irvine and June 5 at the San Diego Sports Arena.

The band plans to repeat the innovation that accompanied its trek in 2000 -- all the shows will be recorded and released as CDs. Last time, that ambitious documentation gave Pearl Jam a nice entry in the pop music history books when five of the live albums debuted in the same week on the Top 200 sales chart, the most simultaneous debuts by any act. (It did not give them the title for having the most albums on the chart at the same time. That record -- seven -- is shared by the Beatles, U2 and the Monkees.)

This week, Pearl Jam is readying for a run through Australia and then Japan, and its North American dates will begin at the Pepsi Center in Denver on April 1. There is also a June 6 show at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. At the moment, the band has 49 shows on its itinerary in the U.S. and Canada, and more may be added.

In addition to releasing the live albums, the band will be streaming performances over its Web site, pearl jam.com. Mailings this week from www.tenclub.net, the official Pearl Jam fan Web site, will tell members about pre-orders for concert tickets. The shows are expected to feature a hearty amount of material from the group’s latest album, “Riot Act,” which was released in November.

-- Geoff Boucher