Era of the moment: 1999-2000

[nightmareblack0206]

Well....during this time is when IMO the band grew up. 1999 saw their biggest commercial hit out of LAST KISS.

2000 and we have a new single. NAIS . I was actually a little torn between the selection. Then I saw them on Letterman like a month prior to release.They plplayer Grievance (rocked it) . Now this was the first PJ album i purchased WITHOUT listening to a leak. Day of release i was actually kinda stumped. Apart from a couple standout tracks it was a mediocre PJ album.

As time went by I spun it and spun it and till this day its up there as one of my favorites

1999 was a VERY difficult time for me. I was 19 and my father who was my best friend, one day just fell on the floor and passed. Still hurts till this day.

[VinylGuy]

Well....during this time is when IMO the band grew up. 1999 saw their biggest commercial hit out of LAST KISS.

2000 and we have a new single. NAIS . I was actually a little torn between the selection. Then I saw them on Letterman like a month prior to release.They plplayer Grievance (rocked it) . Now this was the first PJ album i purchased WITHOUT listening to a leak. Day of release i was actually kinda stumped. Apart from a couple standout tracks it was a mediocre PJ album.

As time went by I spun it and spun it and till this day its up there as one of my favorites

1999 was a VERY difficult time for me. I was 19 and my father who was my best friend, one day just fell on the floor and passed. Still hurts till this day.

im sorry to hear about your dad.

i love the bridge benefit concert from 1999...is such a great performance and they did play thin air and nothing as it seems there...beautiful versions..and a great rendition of i shall be released too.

2000...i felt like i was the only fan PJ had in Argentina. Binaural...i just loved it from the beginning...weird album for sure.

[dimejinky99]

Sorry to hear about your dad.

Something changed at this point. This period was like the big hangover after the whole Yield record/tour party. Binaural is the first record where they decided to reflect the times and what the band were seeing around them. Riots in Seattle, the Bush thing. All that darkened the tone of that whole record and time. And then Roskilde. I guess that alone leaves a monolithic shadow they'll never escape from, despite the fact that they kept going.

[nightmareblack0206]

Great posts. ...

[nightmareblack0206]

Ya know i feel this was the worse time to be a PJ fan. This was the time that us true fans stuck by them.

[Birds in Hell]

I thought I was way too cool to listen to dorky bands like Pearl Jam during this time.

Thankfully, I got over myself.

[bada]

I was pretty let down by Binaural when it first came out. There were really only a couple songs I liked. I've come to enjoy the album more over the years and especially the songs that were left off but at the time it was a bummer.

[Lament]

In reading a lot of commentary regarding PJ20 it came to my attention that people who either took a break from Pearl Jam during this era or didn't get into them until afterwards don't seem to really grasp the magnitude of that summer and beyond. The Yield era was the first time that it really felt like the band wasn't on the brink of breaking up, and in the aftermath of Roskilde it all of the sudden seemed more real than ever that the band may be done. People seem to forget the uncertainty regarding them ever playing live again after the tragedy. Vigilant fans remembered Ed's comments in the wake of the Smashing Pumpkins concert tragedy a few years earlier that if something like that were to ever happen at a Pearl Jam show they would never be able to carry on as a band (and this was a time when they were still putting a high value on walking it like they talked it). Supposedly Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth was the opening act for the first US leg of the upcoming tour) was telling people he expected the tour to be cancelled and Pearl Jam to quit. Pete Townshend said he spoke with Ed (having had the same thing happen to the Who in 1979) and was left with no impression of what Pearl Jam was going to do.

Even when the US tour went on as scheduled, I feel like every fan went into those shows feeling like it could be the last time they ever saw them. It was several weeks into the tour before it started feeling like maybe this wasn't the end. Some of those shows from the end of August till early November were among the tightest, most focused the band ever played. This is (to me at least), the point where everything changed. The next time they were on the road (2003), they discovered the value of nostalgia, and their shows slowly became what they are today. The 2000 tour really seems like the final go-round of the old Pearl Jam. I guess the Binaural era really was one you had to live through to really understand.

[Norah]

This was the absolute best time to be a Pearl Jam fan.

[Norah]

The next time they were on the road (2003), they discovered the value of nostalgia, and their shows slowly became what they are today.

I pretty much made this exact statement in the let's talk about the 2003 tour thread.

[Norah]

Though my point was more they became very self aware during the 2003 tour and then ran with that party band attitude. It's like once they realized how good they were live they stopped trying.

[nightmareblack0206]

AMAZING POST LAMENT

[warehouse]

In reading a lot of commentary regarding PJ20 it came to my attention that people who either took a break from Pearl Jam during this era or didn't get into them until afterwards don't seem to really grasp the magnitude of that summer and beyond. The Yield era was the first time that it really felt like the band wasn't on the brink of breaking up, and in the aftermath of Roskilde it all of the sudden seemed more real than ever that the band may be done. People seem to forget the uncertainty regarding them ever playing live again after the tragedy. Vigilant fans remembered Ed's comments in the wake of the Smashing Pumpkins concert tragedy a few years earlier that if something like that were to ever happen at a Pearl Jam show they would never be able to carry on as a band (and this was a time when they were still putting a high value on walking it like they talked it). Supposedly Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth was the opening act for the first US leg of the upcoming tour) was telling people he expected the tour to be cancelled and Pearl Jam to quit. Pete Townshend said he spoke with Ed (having had the same thing happen to the Who in 1979) and was left with no impression of what Pearl Jam was going to do.

Even when the US tour went on as scheduled, I feel like every fan went into those shows feeling like it could be the last time they ever saw them. It was several weeks into the tour before it started feeling like maybe this wasn't the end. Some of those shows from the end of August till early November were among the tightest, most focused the band ever played. This is (to me at least), the point where everything changed. The next time they were on the road (2003), they discovered the value of nostalgia, and their shows slowly became what they are today. The 2000 tour really seems like the final go-round of the old Pearl Jam. I guess the Binaural era really was one you had to live through to really understand.

this is a great post.

there were only a couple times i really thought the band would actually break up. after the no code album and non-ticketmaster tour and after roskilde. its hard for something like roskilde not to change the band, and as much shit as we give them for not being who they used to be, the fact that they are still around is incredible.

the 2000 tour might have been the height of my fandom, i remember rushing home to hear "thin air" debuting on the radio. i saw both shows in philly in 2000. somehow my buddy managed to get us first fuckin row for the second show, i still remember him telling me we were front row on the phone the day tickets went on sale. i was 16, with my 2 best friends, front row at a concert for the band i've loved almost half of my life. it might have been the best night ever. also, eddie vedder gave me his pick. i still have it in a frame w/ the ticket stubs.

[bodysnatcher]

remember when they quit playing "Alive" during that tour?

[dimejinky99]

In reading a lot of commentary regarding PJ20 it came to my attention that people who either took a break from Pearl Jam during this era or didn't get into them until afterwards don't seem to really grasp the magnitude of that summer and beyond. The Yield era was the first time that it really felt like the band wasn't on the brink of breaking up, and in the aftermath of Roskilde it all of the sudden seemed more real than ever that the band may be done. People seem to forget the uncertainty regarding them ever playing live again after the tragedy. Vigilant fans remembered Ed's comments in the wake of the Smashing Pumpkins concert tragedy a few years earlier that if something like that were to ever happen at a Pearl Jam show they would never be able to carry on as a band (and this was a time when they were still putting a high value on walking it like they talked it). Supposedly Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth was the opening act for the first US leg of the upcoming tour) was telling people he expected the tour to be cancelled and Pearl Jam to quit. Pete Townshend said he spoke with Ed (having had the same thing happen to the Who in 1979) and was left with no impression of what Pearl Jam was going to do.

Even when the US tour went on as scheduled, I feel like every fan went into those shows feeling like it could be the last time they ever saw them. It was several weeks into the tour before it started feeling like maybe this wasn't the end. Some of those shows from the end of August till early November were among the tightest, most focused the band ever played. This is (to me at least), the point where everything changed. The next time they were on the road (2003), they discovered the value of nostalgia, and their shows slowly became what they are today. The 2000 tour really seems like the final go-round of the old Pearl Jam. I guess the Binaural era really was one you had to live through to really understand.

We can view it now as that given hindsight, at the time(2003) it was a band almost celebrating that they can and should go on. And that was enjoyable at the time but there are parts of the set each night where they do get stuck in that. I'm not sure if its 20/20 hindsight
On our part or them feeling obliged to doff their caps hugely to their past each night. Bit of both? Maybe.

They're trapped by their past both musically and in terms of history. But don't think they aren't aware of it.

[warehouse]

remember when they quit playing "Alive" during that tour?

and then everyone got excited seeing it on 5H during the last show

[Lament]

We can view it now as that given hindsight, at the time(2003) it was a band almost celebrating that they can and should go on. And that was enjoyable at the time but there are parts of the set each night where they do get stuck in that. I'm not sure if its 20/20 hindsight
On our part or them feeling obliged to doff their caps hugely to their past each night. Bit of both? Maybe.

They're trapped by their past both musically and in terms of history. But don't think they aren't aware of it.

I feel like a lot of us who had seen them on the previous tours did notice the distinct shift in attitude on the 2003 tour. You hit on a big point though; At the time it was remarkable because it was something you never thought you'd see Pearl Jam too. It was awesome to see them loosen up a bit and be dip back into their past. It felt good to see them look back at where they'd come from, and it felt good to relive those older songs again with them. At the time the ramshackle performances of some of the older songs didn't even bother me as much because the fact they were even playing them still seemed to be such a point of significance.

The 2003 tour was the one I saw them the most on, and every single night felt like it could go in any one of a thousand directions. It was an amazing thing in the moment, and I think at the time a lot of us loved it and really hoped they could find a balance between what made them so great on the 98/00 tours and what made the 2003 tour so much fun (because a Pearl Jam concert being fun was such a foreign concept). You could tell they tried from 2004 -2006 to find that balance. At times like Philadelphia in 05 and Grand Rapids in 06, they hit that mark brilliantly, but some nights it seemed like they were chasing something they'd never get back (wasn't there a night they played Avocado from start to finish in the middle of a set?). By the end of 2006 they seemed to stop trying to get back the qualities they lost after 2000 and just threw themselves full-fledged into the opposite end of the spectrum.

So I think you're right. I think they are very aware of being trapped by their history. But I also think they've stopped trying to get out of that trap, which is their prerogative, but no doubt changes things for a lot of us. I still think on any given night you're going to get a performance from them which is a solid 85-90 out of 100, which is remarkable for a band of their tenure. But I think what they sacrificed to get to this point is the ability to leave you feeling like you'd just witnessed the single greatest performance of your life, which you always felt was a possibility when you went to see them up until the mid-00's.

[Strat]

The Binaural tour was absolutely incredible. Those shows absolutely felt like they meant something. The chicago show was one of the most emotionally exhilarating performances ive ever witnessed. What an incredible night that was.

And yea I remember after Roskilde - I thought for sure they were done. That was tough.

[Norah]

After Roskilde I was pretty certain I just missed my chance to ever see Pearl Jam live.

[Norah]

Sure it's hindsight, but when you look into what Peal Jam has become it becomes more obvious looking back that 2003 was when that change really started. It was slight at first, but they haven't really turned back from that path.