AT&T;: Pearl Jam mute a ‘mistake’

Pearl Jam is alarmed that an AT&T; concert website pulled the plug on their stage politics, but an official with the communications giant called the incident “a major, major mistake” that runs counter to the company’s policy.

The Seattle rock band closed the three-day Lollapolooza Festival in Chicago last weekend, with AT&T;’s Blue Room handling the live webcast. But when singer Eddie Vedder sprinkled one song with some disparaging lyrics about President Bush, a content monitor chose to hit the equivalent of a mute button.

The band, on its official website, called that decision an example of Corporate America putting a chill on free speech.

“This, of course, troubles us as artists but also as citizens concerned with the issue of censorship and the increasingly consolidated control of the media,” the band said in the statement. “AT&T;’s actions strike at the heart of the public’s concerns over the power that corporations have when it comes to determining what the public sees and hears through communications media.”

During their song “Daughter,” the band went into an interlude to the tune of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall,” and frontman Eddie Vedder sang, “George Bush, leave this world alone.” When he repeated the line and added, “George Bush, find yourself another home,” those words were blocked from the webcast audience.

On Thursday, Tiffany Nels, an AT&T; spokeswoman, attributed the incident to an overzealous editor employed by a production company that was contracted for the event. She said Blue Room policy is to leave all lyrical content intact; censors are only supposed to key in on obscene stage banter, nudity and inappropriate crowd behavior.

-- Geoff Boucher