Talking of wars, it's getting very hard for patriotic Americans to find artists they can support as more and more musicians make anti-war stands. Yesterday it was Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder who, during the encore of the first show on their US tour in Denver took a mask of Georgie Bush and impaled it on a microphone stand. To mixed reactions from the audience he then said: "We support the troops. We're just confused on how wanting to bring them back safely all of a sudden becomes non-support. We love them. They're not the ones who make the foreign policy ... Let's hope for the best and speak our opinions."
Initial reports in local media suggested a significant number of fans walked out during the anti-Bush anti-war rant, but an official statement from the band denied that any walk out was marked. "There were close to 12,000 people at the April 1st Denver show," they said. "It's possible two dozen left during encore but it was not noticeable amongst the 11,976 who were loudly applauding and enjoying the evening's music. It just made a better headline to report otherwise. Ed's talk from the stage centered on the importance of freedom of speech and the importance of supporting our soldiers as well as an expression of sadness over the public being made to feel as though the two sentiments can't occur simultaneously".