Lets Actually Listen to the Album: Riot Act

[VinylGuy]

"To myself I surrender / To the one I'll never please" might be the single most hard-hitting, personal PJ lyric that I connect with. Fucking kills to hear it. Lump-in-the-throat, every time.

i agree. Its amazing...and he nails it.

Fuck All or none is such a great song.

[LetMeSleep]

"To myself I surrender / To the one I'll never please" might be the single most hard-hitting, personal PJ lyric that I connect with. Fucking kills to hear it. Lump-in-the-throat, every time.

i agree. Its amazing...and he nails it.

Fuck All or none is such a great song.

Oh yes.

[Leatherhead]

I don't really have any problems with Bushleaguer. Spoken lyrics and all.

[Strat]

I don't really have any problems with Bushleaguer. Spoken lyrics and all.

[chewm]

I sorta agree, it's very pleasant to hear

[VinylGuy]

I don't really have any problems with Bushleaguer. Spoken lyrics and all.

I think the music is great but i kinda wish it would be different. But its a pretty cool performance.

[PearlJames]

"To myself I surrender / To the one I'll never please" might be the single most hard-hitting, personal PJ lyric that I connect with. Fucking kills to hear it. Lump-in-the-throat, every time.

Long time lurker here, listen to the Vic boot where they opened with All or None and that line is a sing along

[Monkey_Driven]

A lot of the rockers on this album seem to be similar and forgettable at first listen, but each one has really grabbed my attention at different points in the past 14 years.

[Monkey_Driven]

Listened to this last night for my annual "it's a cold and kind of depressing winter day" revisit.

This deserved a proper follow up. I adore so many things about it and is has become the album I revisit the most. Everything about it has aged so gracefully (the production, lyrics, writing, themes).

I've always found Love Boat Captain to ride the line between hokey and genuinely moving. Sometimes I fall on one side, and sometimes on the other. Last night the final delivery of the chorus ("Hold me, and make it the truth, That when all is lost there will be you, 'Cause to the universe I don't mean a thing And there's just one word I still believe And it's love") just hit me so hard I felt weak in the knees. That is the Pearl Jam I think we all fell for and it's the one I hope we get back.

[Birds in Hell]

I never knew what those lyrics were until now! That’s much better than “hold me and make effort too”, which I presumed wasn’t the real lyric but I’ve been mentally using as a placeholder for the last 17 years. The next line was just phonetic noises.

[stip]

Im glad you found it moving, but I found LBC to be maybe the flatest song on the album. It never did much for me but is one of the RA songs that hasnt unlocked with time

[Monkey_Driven]

Im glad you found it moving, but I found LBC to be maybe the flatest song on the album. It never did much for me but is one of the RA songs that hasnt unlocked with time

I think we are often just looking for different things with the band. Binaural and Riot Act are in my top 4.

[EJ]

Uneven record. Some top shelf songs in there, but it can be a bit of a slog to listen straight through.

[Anders]

Uneven record. Some top shelf songs in there, but it can be a bit of a slog to listen straight through.

Difficult to disagree with this. Love the warmth of the album though.

[liebzz]

Riot Act’s turn!

Riot Act: Can’t Keep, Save You, Love Boat Captain, Cropduster, Ghost, I Am Mine, Thumbing My Way, You Are, Get Right, Green Disease, HelpHelp, Bu$hleaguer, 1/2 Full, Arc, All or None

B-sides: I Believe in Miracles, Don’t Believe in Christmas, Someday at Christmas, Gimme Some Truth, Thumbing My Way (Chop Suey), Crown of Thorns, Down, Undone, Other Side, Man of the Hour

Live: State College, PA 5/3/03 - Release, Save You, Animal, Corduroy, Cropduster, Small Town, Even Flow, Grievance, I Am Mine, I Wanna Go, Rearviewmirror, Nothingman, Daughter, Lukin, Whipping, MFC, Jeremy, Improv 16, Blood, Encore Break, You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, Gimme Some Truth, Breath, Do the Evolution, Black, Alive, Encore Break 2, Last Exit, Mankind, Down, Better Man, Satan’s Bed, Leaving Here, Encore Break 3, Crazy Mary, Porch, Fortunate Son, Rockin in the Free World, Yellow Ledbetter

[lvc]

Listened to this last night for my annual "it's a cold and kind of depressing winter day" revisit.

This deserved a proper follow up. I adore so many things about it and is has become the album I revisit the most. Everything about it has aged so gracefully (the production, lyrics, writing, themes).

I've always found Love Boat Captain to ride the line between hokey and genuinely moving. Sometimes I fall on one side, and sometimes on the other. Last night the final delivery of the chorus ("Hold me, and make it the truth, That when all is lost there will be you, 'Cause to the universe I don't mean a thing And there's just one word I still believe And it's love") just hit me so hard I felt weak in the knees. That is the Pearl Jam I think we all fell for and it's the one I hope we get back.

Constant recoil; sometimes life don't leave you alone is another line that has always stuck with me. My working theory is your love for Riot Act is directly proportional to your struggle with depression/melancholic personality.

[lvc]

Riot Act’s turn!

Riot Act: Can’t Keep, Save You, Love Boat Captain, Cropduster, Ghost, I Am Mine, Thumbing My Way, You Are, Get Right, Green Disease, HelpHelp, Bu$hleaguer, 1/2 Full, Arc, All or None

B-sides: I Believe in Miracles, Don’t Believe in Christmas, Someday at Christmas, Gimme Some Truth, Thumbing My Way (Chop Suey), Crown of Thorns, Down, Undone, Other Side, Man of the Hour

Live: State College, PA 5/3/03 - Release, Save You, Animal, Corduroy, Cropduster, Small Town, Even Flow, Grievance, I Am Mine, I Wanna Go, Rearviewmirror, Nothingman, Daughter, Lukin, Whipping, MFC, Jeremy, Improv 16, Blood, Encore Break, You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, Gimme Some Truth, Breath, Do the Evolution, Black, Alive, Encore Break 2, Last Exit, Mankind, Down, Better Man, Satan’s Bed, Leaving Here, Encore Break 3, Crazy Mary, Porch, Fortunate Son, Rockin in the Free World, Yellow Ledbetter

Does this mean that State College is your definitive live set from this era? Speaking of State College, that version of Satan's Bed--if it can even rise to the level of a "version"--is hilariously botched. Like the version of Singles from the MTV thing being the birth of "no", I like to think the State College Satan's Bed was the birth of "rehearsal".

[stip]

If I recall, State College has my favorite Betterman outside of Atlanta 94, mostly on the strength of an incredible tag

[liebzz]

Riot Act’s turn!

Riot Act: Can’t Keep, Save You, Love Boat Captain, Cropduster, Ghost, I Am Mine, Thumbing My Way, You Are, Get Right, Green Disease, HelpHelp, Bu$hleaguer, 1/2 Full, Arc, All or None

B-sides: I Believe in Miracles, Don’t Believe in Christmas, Someday at Christmas, Gimme Some Truth, Thumbing My Way (Chop Suey), Crown of Thorns, Down, Undone, Other Side, Man of the Hour

Live: State College, PA 5/3/03 - Release, Save You, Animal, Corduroy, Cropduster, Small Town, Even Flow, Grievance, I Am Mine, I Wanna Go, Rearviewmirror, Nothingman, Daughter, Lukin, Whipping, MFC, Jeremy, Improv 16, Blood, Encore Break, You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away, Gimme Some Truth, Breath, Do the Evolution, Black, Alive, Encore Break 2, Last Exit, Mankind, Down, Better Man, Satan’s Bed, Leaving Here, Encore Break 3, Crazy Mary, Porch, Fortunate Son, Rockin in the Free World, Yellow Ledbetter

Does this mean that State College is your definitive live set from this era? Speaking of State College, that version of Satan's Bed--if it can even rise to the level of a "version"--is hilariously botched. Like the version of Singles from the MTV thing being the birth of "no", I like to think the State College Satan's Bed was the birth of "rehearsal".

It’s hard to say what the definitive live set would be, but there are contenders:

State College 5/3/03 - (yes that Satan’s Bed alone caused me to unnecessarily hate on this show even though the rest is spectacular) definitely a big night for the band as it concluded the first leg. Band played its head off, and it got released as a commercial entity in stores.

New York 7/8/03: Live at the Garden. The first set is fine but not mind blowing (I was there), but one of the top encores you’ll see anywhere in the tour.

Mansfield 7/11/03: the longest show of the tour. The acoustic-ish set opening for themselves, and Sleater-Kinney. A show full of bust outs and rarities, and the band clearly having a blast. Would be undeniably the definitive show, but its story is really tied up in the two Mansfield shows the week before - more a culmination of the experiment than fully the tour itself.

Uniondale, NY 4/30/03: one of the more famous of their shows since they got booed for playing Bu$hleaguer whilst impaling a Bush mask on the mic stand. Great show up to and through that moment, but those pesky conservative fans threw this one into odd territory.

Tokyo, Japan 3/3/03: the band is on fire on this show. Crowd was polite but the band was killing it from the get go.

[VinylGuy]

Tokyo 03 is my fav from this tour, a tour i havent really gone that deep into.

Also, Showbox 02 must be considered!!