The Dutch equivalent of Britain's weekly chart music TV show Top Of The Pops, Countdown ran from 1976 to 1993 and billed itself as Europe's Number 1 Rock Show. So when fast-rising Seattle grunge act Pearl Jam booked a six week European club tour in the spring of 1992, their first dates outside of the US, Countdown's producers naturally reached out to Epic Records' promo department to book the band for an appearance on their show.
There was one minor issue to overcome, however, before the booking could be signed off. As on Top Of The Pops, artists appearing on Countdown were standardly asked to lip sync to a playback of their current chart hit for simplicity's sake: for Pearl Jam, always determined that the presentation of their art should be pure, honest and authentic, this was never going to fly. As an alternative, the band suggested that the Countdown cameras be given access to a soundcheck ahead of one of their shows in Holland in the first week of March 1992, during which they would perform the first two singles to be taken from their debut album Ten, Alive (already climbing the Dutch charts) and Even Flow (set for an April release), exclusively for the show. This proposal was agreeable to all.
