16. 10 Billion Years vs. Life Wasted vs. Sleeping By Myself

[Kevin Davis]

RM doesn't appreciate ST as much as they should

I've really enjoyed it a lot more lately. The live versions of all of those songs are just so good. It would have made for a cool "Time Fades Away," live-album-of-all-new material deal. I hardly ever play the studio album.

I appreciate this sentiment, but there’s a haphazard/ramshackle charm to the entire Ditch era that PJ would never be willing to fully commit to.

Oh, I'm not saying that it would check the same aesthetic boxes as TFA, just that I like that medium as an idea for presenting this material to the world. In truth I'd say the reason the S/T songs are so good live is the opposite. They're tighter wound, more deftly executed, and just overall better lived-in than their album counterparts (to be clear, I am talking about the 2006 live versions here). It may be the only PJ album where live versions render the studio record completely obsolete for me.

I would never expect them to do something like that in reality; it's just an interesting thought exercise.

[Birds in Hell]

RM doesn't appreciate ST as much as they should

I've really enjoyed it a lot more lately. The live versions of all of those songs are just so good. It would have made for a cool "Time Fades Away," live-album-of-all-new material deal. I hardly ever play the studio album.

I once had the same idea, and put together the following:

Pearl Jam - BLACK MARKET AVOCADO (Live 2006)

1. Severed Hand (Hartford, 13 May)
2. Comatose (Sydney, 18 November)
3. Life Wasted (St Paul, 26 June)
4. Gone (Sydney, 18 November)
5. Unemployable (San Francisco, 15 July)
6. Army Reserve (Zagreb, 26 September)
7. World Wide Suicide (Vitoria, 2September)
8. Marker in the Sand (Prague, 22 September)
9. Inside Job (Melbourne, 13 November)
10. Parachutes (Portland, 20 July)
11. Big Wave (Madrid, 7 September)
12. Wasted Reprise (Toronto, 10 May)
13. Come Back (Santa Barbara, 13 July)

LINK (FLAC & MP3)

I liked the flow better with my tracklisting (at least at the time), but I understand views may differ on that point.

[Brett]

I've said it before, but the Brickwallhater remaster, or whatever it is, really helped to sway me on Avocado. He managed to cut back on some of the harshness which lets the details of the songs to shine through. The record still has its flaws, but I no longer view it as the band's downfall.