Pearl Jam's Lollapalooza performance censored?

Pearl Jam and hundreds of angry fans have spoken out against the apparent censoring of the band's performance at Lollapalooza last weekend by AT&T on its webcast of the event.

The telecommunications giant, which sponsored Lollapalooza, muted singer Eddie Vedder's lyrics: "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush find yourself another home," which he sang to the tune of Pink Floyd's 'Another Brick In The Wall'.

When Pearl Jam learned of the apparent censorship on AT&T's webcast, the band issued a statement saying:

"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.

"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."

AT&T issued a statement in response, attributing the censorship to "a mistake by a Webcast vendor" that was "contrary to our policy. We have policies in place with respect to editing excessive profanity, but AT&T does not censor performances. We very much regret that this happened in the first place."

AT&T added that it is working to broadcast the complete, uncensored performance on its webcast.

Meanwhile, Pearl Jam said that they intend to stream their performance in its entirety from their website, and added, "In the future, we will work even harder to ensure that our live broadcasts or webcasts are free from arbitrary edits."

--By our Los Angeles staff.
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