WAYLAID TOUR

By CHRISTOPHER JOHN FARLEY

It is a clash of rock-world titans. In one corner, with more than 20 million albums sold: the alternative rock band Pearl Jam. In the other, with more than $1 billion in annual ticket sales: Ticketmaster, the powerful ticket-distribution service. Not so much boxing as wrestling, the bout has got so messy that it's hard to tell who's left in the ring.

In April the band announced it would mount a tour without Ticketmaster, which it claims has a monopolistic hold over ticket distribution to rock concerts and charges excessively high service fees. Instead, the band said it would use a newer ticket service, ETM Entertainment Network, and play some smaller, alternative non-Ticketmaster venues.

Just after the tour started, Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis reportedly said the band might relent and use Ticketmaster. That brought an outcry--from Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder, who insisted that Ticketmaster was out. Then, on June 24, Vedder got sick with the flu, ended a San Francisco concert early and decided to cancel the entire tour-sort of. Days later, the band reinstated concerts in Milwaukee and Chicago and hinted at more.

But the Milwaukee shows, it turns out, are part of a local festival whose tickets are being sold by ... Ticketmaster. A Pearl Jam spokesperson said the band was simply honoring a "pre-Ticketmaster-controversy commitment" and had no future plans to use the ticket service. But a press release from Ticketmaster announced "Pearl Jam Sells Out" --before coyly explaining it referred to the shows, not the band's values. Its fans will have to judge the latter.

--Reported by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles

With reporting by Jeffrey Ressner/Los Angeles