I flew to New York from Chicago this summer to see one of their Madison Square Garden shows. I was incredibly excited and have seen them about twenty times. The show was good, but I will never travel or probably see another show of theirs because their fan base is so fucking annoying. I was close to kicking ass/getting my ass kicked about three times. One guy somehow got the setlist in advance and was screaming the next song before it got played. Petty, but really fucking annoying after travelling so far to go to a concert. They're all really funny looking meat heads that think they're deep because they relate to Eddie Vedder's lyrics.

Oh, and for the guy looking for tickets to the EV show--I'm guessing you'll be able to show up at the venue and get tickets for about half price. They can't give the tickets away on ebay.

Thanks for the tip. Certain conditions require more of a plan than that, so I might not be able to take advantage. But I'll look around for people trying to dump them off prior to the evening of the show.

so far, i'd say this:

1) No Code

2) Yield

3) Vitalogy

4) Ten

5) Vs.

there just don't seem to be that many standout tracks, for me, on Vs. i'll keep listening, though.

on the other hand, listening to Vitalogy a few times yesterday, i think i liked songs like "Nothingman" and a few others much more than i did 14 years ago when it came out originally. and Ten isn't that bad. "Even Flow" doesn't do much for me, but some of the other over-played songs aren't too bad.

i think i'll either look into the B-sides compilation or some live shows next.

thanks again!

yield over the first 3 pearl jam records is a big in my eyes, but to each their own.

yes, but you see, i have a couple weeks or so invested in the band.

how many years have you listened to Pearl Jam? how many concerts? how many friends? good times? how much context or mythology have you built up in this band?

i remember when i first started getting into Guided By Voices. my favorite record was Universal Truths And Cycles. old GBV fans regarded the album as "nu-GBV," and thus, not the real GBV. they had a lot of fans that wouldn't go past the "golden era" of 1993-1996.

it's just that, so far, i don't really get "Vs." "Vitalogy" has a few tracks that are, so far, doing very little for me. i hear that they're a little experimental and a little off the beaten path, but they don't do much for me. "Ten" is really pretty good, but some of it isn't all that great.

and "Yield" sounds great. may even be better than "No Code" since i was listening to it on the way to work today.

i def prefer Yield over Ten, that's for sure.

it doesn't surprise me that someone new to PJ picks Yield out of the bunch honestly

Really glad I decided to buy tickets to the Ed Ved solo show tonight. It was a ton of fun.

First of all, I'd never seen Liam Finn before, but he puts on one hell of a show. I guess he's touring in October and I'd recommend him highly. Does a lot of looping of guitar and vocals and absolutely kicks ass on drums.

As for Ed Ved, he was hilarious and bitched out some people who were yelling out songs. The crowd really quieted down after that.

He played some great covers: Walking the Cow, Trouble, Ship Song, Hurt, Helpless to name a few.

Betterman had a completely different tempo and melody.

Porch was great acoustic - kinda reminiscent of the unplugged performance.

I guess he might pull out Hunger Strike tomorrow, so I think I'm going to have to find tickets for the last show tomorrow.

i mean, i've listened to pearl jam since i was probably 8 years old, but i'm also only 23. only seen em twice. they mean a LOT to me (a top 10 band of all time), but i'm hardly a superfan.

i just really don't think yield is that incredible of a record. never have. that's all. ten isn't either, but i think it's a solid tier or more above yield.

but i'm glad you like PJ. and GBV. PJ also likes GBV, or at least pollard. hopefully the feeling is reciprocal between the two of them

i was at the two Toronto shows

this solo tour has really turned out to be something special

Down to the album artwork, you can feel the warmth.

And Ed Ved last night was a revelation, this coming from someone who's seen Pearl Jam in the neighborhood of 15 times. Even Dero loved it!

picked up the Lost Dogs compilation and the Live @ Benaroya Hall records last night.

not much on Lost Dogs stuck out (yet), but there were a lot of good versions of songs on the Benaroya disc. especially the covers of "Masters of War" and "25 Minutes To Go." i think "Down" from both records was really good, too.

back to listening...

It depends on what your background is, if you were previously into Nirvana and the "grunge" scene then start with Ten and then Vs. I started with Ten and then went to Vs, now my favorites are Vitalogy, Yield, and No Code. But the easiest albums to get into on first listen are probably Ten and Vs.

i actually love lost dogs but i rarely find myself listening to it.

because the first 10 dogs (so far...upon 2nd listen) are all really solid. good stuff.

Yeild > Ten
Yeild > Vs

No Code is obviously brilliant, but Binaural is really pretty good too. And no one ever really talks about it much.

But yeah, Yeild > Ten, easy

1. Vitalogy
2. No Code
3. Vs
4. Binaural
5. Yield
6. Ten
7. Riot Act
8. Pearl Jam

just reading up on AllMusic.com about the 3 "Dissident" singles pretty much containing live performances of the first two albums.

are these worth getting?
are these hard to pick up on Ebay?

if you can find them, yeah

i found a set unopened for $65 like 4-5 years ago for my wife for xmas, but that was pretty cheap

nice
a few years back I found a gently used copy for less than $20. Somehow the store had no idea how much they could have charged.

well worth picking up.

the show those live tracks come from is 4/3/94 in Atlanta, one of PJ's best shows ever, and one of the best bootlegs there is

the Dissident singles aren't the entire show though, but there's an FM broadcast of the entire thing that you can find pretty easily

One of my favorite Pearl Jam songs has been CRAZY MARY. It was on some sort of comp but I don't remember what it was called. Im sure most of you have heard it already but if not here you go

http://www.filestube.com/6ff71e3c9d290b5f03ea/details.html

I think it was on Sweet Relief II.
Yeah, good song.

you know, i don't doubt that it's one of Pearl Jam's best shows ever, but this is one of the things about collecting bootlegs that has always intrigued me: how do you guys have enough time and resources 1) to obtain all of these various shows; 2) to listen to all of these shows and 3) be able to tell which are the better shows???

i'd love to hear all the great Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, Pearl Jam, (you name it) shows that exist.

for me, i think you have to do it in the moment, as it's happening. otherwise, it's far too daunting a task to look backwards on a long career and start listening to bootlegs from scratch.

with pearl jam, i started seriously collecting bootlegs during their 2000 tour, when they released every show to stores (ah, the good ol' days!). the fun part is then going on message boards and seeing what kind of consensus starts to build for certain shows. usually, after every tour there's a handful of shows that almost everyone can agree on.

in case either of you didn't realize it, that is a victoria williams song

Before PJ started releasing every show, certain shows would gain a big buzz with fans too - either because of a great source, new songs being played or really rare songs being played.

Atlanta was an easy one because it was not a bootleg but transmitted over the radio - on Easter sunday no less. And they played for like 2.5 hours.

In the early days it seemed more about which were the best shows that were recorded really well.

Now, I just look for more epic shows (really long like State College, but I don't think it is really that great of a performance) or something totally different like Benaroya Hall or the 3 night run in boston.

For the last couple tours, I listened to every single show, but that kind of took the fun out of it. Sure you'd get cool moments in every show, but after a while they just all kind of blended together. Too much of a good thing I suppose.

i have been to around 10 shows since 2003

buffalo may 2 2003 is probley my fav

hartford was pretty great this year though.....

Both of the Auditorium Theatre Ed shows are up on Demonoid now. Night 1 is in mp3 and night 2 is in flac.

i don't understand why the YIELD and LIVE @ BENAROYA HALL records get such low marks on Allmusic.com.

are the people who review the records sick of reviewing all those live albums?

EDIT: i mean, with the choice versions of "Low Light," "Thumbing My Way" and "Thin Air" coming early and the versions of "Black," "25 Minutes To Go," "Down," "Masters of War" and "Daughter" (among others) later on...that's a pretty good show!

yeah and Yield is arguably their best record.

just got LIVE ON TWO LEGS in the mail last night.

so far, nothing sounds all that illuminating. i'm about 8 songs in.

that might be my least fav of any live PJ in my collection.
I'm pretty sure I haven't listened to that one since it first came out.

THIS SONG'S CALLED LONGEST TITLE IN THE PEARL JAME CATALOG
ELDERLY WOMAN BEHIND THE COUNTER...IN A...SMALL......TOWN.....
ONE TWO THREE FOUR TWO THREE

Love Live on Two Legs

Untitled into MFC, Red Mosquito and Off He Goes.
Do The Evolution.

It has some of my favorite PJ songs on it.

Got a car
I got some gas
Oh let's get out of here
Get out of here fast

Speaking of live PJ, what is the best live version of Release?

ditto.

the sound quality is shit compared to many bootlegs, and there's even one instance of a track being taken from 2 different sources (Even Flow comes from 2 different shows, the solo is taken out of a different show).

Ed's voice sounded super high in '98 too.

i saw 4 shows that year, but '98 was not a great tour by any means

i think montana maintains that LO2L is one of the best live records of all time, but i could be mistaken. that untitled song is the jam indeed

Untitled was alright and i liked the feel of "Even Flow" ~ interesting that the song is two different performances ~ but i think the best song was "Fuckin' Up." not sure how it holds up to the original (haven't heard it in a while) or various other live versions, but i thought that was pretty great.

still, the release doesn't strike me as being essential.

Bobatwork, you'd have been better off picking up any number of their "official bootlegs" over LoTL

Did PJ ever do a studio version of "Fuckin' Up"? Or just live? I know it's a Neil Young song...

i get that impression and probably will in the next couple weeks or so.

also, BINAURAL came in the mail and i think i enjoy half of it but the other half is just kind of...(shrug). very few songs actually stand out. but i think i liked "Thin Air" and the last song (forget the title) and a couple of others.

doesn't really rock much, though, does it?

Save You is the jam. The fucking JAM.

I've never been a big "Save You" fan because of (and this is true of Riot Act in its entirety) Ed's delivery. Dispassionate. This song deserves Vs. era, snarling, angry Vedder.

LO2L has never really done it for me. There are so many other great shows that trump this release. Could give recommendations if interested.

Best version of Release? Very tough question, as I've personally seen a lot of great ones. You can almost always mark a good show by checking if they open with Release. I think Ed puts it as an opener on the setlist when he's especially feeling his oats. All that said, a really good version was during the 2003 tour in Kansas City. To the Concert Chronology description:

"Opening with 'Release,' singing, "Oh, dear Dad, can you see us now? I am myself, like you somehow." (A large streak of lightning flashes across the sky). Ed says, "Hi, Dad." A rather powerful moment, helping fuel the rest of the "short, but sweet" set as the crowd sings the words in the rain."

well, the "Merkinball" single came in the mail yesterday. must have been all the build-up, because i'm a little disappointed. they didn't sound bad to me. they just didn't do anything for me.

i've got somewhere around 40 songs or so that i plan on putting on three mixes, i think, and will distribute to a couple of friends to see what they think. at this point, neither of the songs on "Merkinball" will have made it.

interesting...

Long Road and I Got Shit are 2 of my fave PJ songs (def top 20)

i think they're a couple of everybody's favorites. but what sets them apart for you? i don't want to say that they didn't have a hook, but...i don't know.

when i used to listen to Liz Phair a lot, i thought that there was at least one thing about a song that pulled me in, whether it was the hook, the chorus, the lyrics, the bridge, whatever. eventually, i'd like the whole song. the same has happened with a lot of Pearl Jam's songs...sometimes, i don't like the whole song, but there's something that gets me. "Crazy Mary," for example. the wordless humming or moaning that kind of makes up a bridge...that's the only part of the song i liked for a while but now i like the whole song.

i'm still looking for some part in those two songs to get under my skin.

in regards to the mixes, there are about 8 songs that i'm going to use off of the LIVE @ BENAROYA HALL record. that's probably my favorite release of theirs at the moment. that version of "Black" just knocks my wife and i out.

would that LIVE @ THE GORGE set be the next edition? or should i go for individual "bootleg" shows that they released?

Crazy Mary was written by Victoria Williams, fwiw

as for I Got Shit, the hook is pretty huge for me. Long Road is more subtle, and the live versions way more powerful. my 2nd PJ show ever in '95 in Casper, WY they opened with Long Road which was the first time anyone had ever heard it, so i'm a bit biased on that regards.

they only ever open with Long Road these days (along with Release, Sometimes, etc.)

check out Black from i *THINK* Berlin 2000 (6.25.00) on the official bootleg, if that's the version i'm thinking of, it's absolutely stunning, and i'm not usually a huge fan of Black. if it's not Berlin, it's Milan a few days earlier

Those two songs on Merkinball are about as entrenched in self pity as you can get.

I think that's why I used to love 'em.

this i knew.



looks like i know which show(s) to look into next.

great tunes in their own right, but to answer your question: neil young (well, only on i got ID, but still...) jesus, that solo!

I was retarded crazy over this band for like a decade, but then sorta drifted to other things. For some reason I keep returning to vitalogy/no code/yield. These seem to have held up over time better for me. Maybe it's because those are their best records that I didn't play into the ground back in the day.... or more likely it's just that all those half assed bands that followed and mimicked pearl jam killed the sound for me.
Subtopic: am I the only one that hated the Brendan OBrien sound on the new Springsteen album? That one was really close to being great in my humble opinion, but something about the production just didn't sit well with me.