Sept. 20, 1996 -- Already back on tour is Pearl Jam, for the first time since its aborted, anti-Ticketmaster jaunt last year. The band launched a short American tour Monday night in its Seattle hometown, with a benefit gig for several local schools, including one attended by guitarist Stone Gossard and his sister. Once again, Pearl Jam is avoiding Ticketmaster, and using alternative agency FT&T, which worked on last year's tour, and is again using an intricate system of local phone numbers in each tour city. We were at Monday night's show -- which ran 2 1/2 hours -- and spoke with fans afterwards.

FEMALE FAN 1: They're here just to play music and that's it. You know, no crap, just good music.

FEMALE FAN 2: I though Eddie was great, I thought Pearl Jam was great. Even though I'm really not happy with the ticket service, the concert was so great.

FEMALE FAN 3: We love you Eddie!

MTV: How'd you go about getting your tickets?

MALE FAN 1: I went through their system.

MTV: And did you have trouble or was it easy to do?

MALE FAN 1: No, I got in real quick.

MALE FAN 2: Well, I'm in the fan club, so we sent in for 'em and got two tickets.

FEMALE FAN 4: (It was) pretty hellish, actually. It was, like, three and a half hours on the first day they went on sale and somehow I just got through. It was, like, me and 399 other people on the first day.

FEMALE FAN 5: We called FT&T, the 1-800 number, got through the first time and got tickets, got four of them.

EDDIE VEDDER (onstage, to the crowd): I haven't played for a while, and in the immortal words of Dorothy from the "Wizard of Oz"... there's no place like home.

FEMALE FAN 5: Eddie Vedder, he doesn't do what other artists do.

He's a cool guy. Like when the guy jumped onstage and the bodyguards kind of hounded him, he was like, "Leave my fans alone, don't make this a tackle football game."

VEDDER (to bodyguards trying to wrestle a fan offstage): Hey, OK, it's not tackle football. Let 'em go! (To audience) You know, it's a shame because we were just about to have a dance.

FEMALE FAN 2: This new album is just incredible, and it showed live. They're just really good live performers.

Later in that show, Eddie Vedder tried to further calm any unease between fans and security, telling the crowd that the security guys onstage were part of Pearl Jam's crew, and were his friends. But he also said that while he knew they were just doing their jobs, he reserved the right to first politely ask any fans climbing onstage to leave, if he wanted, before security could get to them.