I love the fact that on a couple of tracks (Wishlist and Immortality I think), Matt comes in slower and drags Ed back in tempo. These tracks breathe. Space is what's needed guys and not just 1-2-3-4 see you at the end. And Jeff is clear, that slide at the end of PT is so in your face. Love it.
My only gripe with the set is that it loses momentum. Just another upbeat track like Animal or Habit in there and this would have flowed much better (IMHO).
Their vault releases are incomplete. AND, they picked shows that ALREADY have good recordings. F That. There are plenty of shows out there that do not have good recordings already and were great shows.
Aliveguy wrote:These idiots at Ten Club fuck everything up.
Their vault releases are incomplete. AND, they picked shows that ALREADY have good recordings. F That. There are plenty of shows out there that do not have good recordings already and were great shows.
That's not exactly fair. It appears that the pre-2000 shows were recorded on a DAT format with one machine (or chain of machines). That means there is going to be missing stuff. I can't say if that's the case for the Beth thing and Ledbetter, but it's definitely the case for Push Me, Pull Me. There have also been songs missing from previous vault releases because of tape changes. Starting in 2000, they appear to have started using two staggered recorders to catch everything. However, you can fault the band for not being open to the idea of patching the vault shows with raw "backup" board tapes, if they exist. They did this in 2000 when the DAT machines malfunctioned in Tampa and again in 2006 in East Rutherford when there was a power failure in the venue and the main recording of the show up to that point had been lost (harddrive?).
And we had a good recording of DC, but not a soundboard. It's sort of silly to complain about a soundboard of such an excellent show.
stip wrote:I noticed a couple of lyrical flubs and musical errors (I'm halfway through the show). Do we not complain about that if it is a 1998 show?
Don't even pretend they're the same kind of flub. Plus the Immortality flub is kinda cool.
yeah some can be kinda cool and some aren't. Same as today. What's the difference between a lyrical botch in Corduroy circa 1998 and today (when the catalog is almost twice as large)?
stip wrote:I noticed a couple of lyrical flubs and musical errors (I'm halfway through the show). Do we not complain about that if it is a 1998 show?
Don't even pretend they're the same kind of flub. Plus the Immortality flub is kinda cool.
yeah some can be kinda cool and some aren't. Same as today. What's the difference between a lyrical botch in Corduroy circa 1998 and today (when the catalog is almost twice as large)?
The problem is, these days you end up more surprised when they get through a song flub-free, rather than the other way around. The difference is really just frequency and the severity of the flubs.
These days whenever I listen to a new show for the first time I'm actually a little tense, waiting for a flub - I don't fully enjoy it until the second time through.
I was going to write a response, but it would have been more or less this rephrased:
Birds in Hell wrote:The huge difference to me is how focused and engaged the entire band sound when playing, well, everything, but particularly the songs which are so frequently rushed through these days, eg. Given to Fly, Corduroy, Better Man, RVM, etc.
They're really performing those songs and I'm sure having Matt learning on the job is a large part of that; they were forced to rethink how to play their entire catalogue (up to that point) all over again. There's a kind of unconscious second-nature quality to the way they tackle a lot of their most played material these days that, while in other bands might lead to a more carefree and adventurous approach, seems to result in a kind of thoughtless thrash to the finish line with these guys. I don't hear that same sense of engagement, the little flourishes that really make the songs push and pull where they need to.
Birds in Hell wrote:
They're really performing those songs and I'm sure having Matt learning on the job is a large part of that; they were forced to rethink how to play their entire catalogue (up to that point) all over again. There's a kind of unconscious second-nature quality to the way they tackle a lot of their most played material these days that, while in other bands might lead to a more carefree and adventurous approach, seems to result in a kind of thoughtless thrash to the finish line with these guys. I don't hear that same sense of engagement, the little flourishes that really make the songs push and pull where they need to.
This perfectly sums up everything that is wrong with (I want to say post-2006, but probably more accurately) post-2003 live PJ. The performance ended the second the frat-party began...
pearl jam concerts are celebrations. They are not frat parties. They are closer to church revivals or political rallies. I agree the atmosphere of the show is very different, and more about the shared experience of being there rather than a more voyeristic relationship with a private performance (but I think we downplay how much of these older shows are still a collective experience waiting to happen--the post 2003 difference is more that the band embraces it and fosters it), and the performances are certainly less tight and probably less intense.
But that frat party comment misunderstands the nature of the live experience today, I think.
stip wrote:What's the difference between a lyrical botch in Corduroy circa 1998 and today (when the catalog is almost twice as large)?
Nothing. It's been a while since I listened to the bootleg of this show; I'm annoyed to learn that there are flubs in it. Typically I'm bothered less by flubs in common songs like "Corduroy," songs we have hundreds of other versions of, but still.
pearl jam concerts are celebrations. They are not frat parties. They are closer to church revivals or political rallies.
I remember my wife specifically commenting after the STL show in 2010 how it felt like a frat party. Eddie spends the entire show getting progressively drunker, changes song lyrics to include dumb-assed drug references, and the audience is full of people only half paying attention and behaving like belligerent jackasses. When I saw Pearl Jam in 2000, they did their own thing onstage and involved the audience only to the degree that they cared to be involved; these days it sometimes seems like Ed is specifically catering to the obnoxious idiot who is ruining the show for everyone else, concerned less with his relationship to the music and more with getting him to scream really loud by any means necessary.
I don't really think the out of context pointing out of flubs is barking up the right tree., i.e. "see, Eddie hit the wrong chord in Corduroy back in '98, too." Somebody's placing the flubs they do now in context of how they treat the catalog as a whole. You may disagree that they have a sloppier and less invested take on the material now, but comparing one missed note or lyric to another devoid of how the band approaches the shows as a whole doesn't go far, IMO.
I also think those earlier shows were collective experiences as well, not just the band playing in the corner treating the audiences' concerns with irrelevance. I think it's just that they had a lot of different kinds of experiences in those older shows, usually transitioning from tour to tour. It could be darker or more celebratory. I think the feeling the shows have now is a great one, and I leave feeling elevated, but they really only do that one thing, or feel, now. 2003 feels like the last year where the shows, in addition to being fun as hell, had their own feel to them.
pearl jam concerts are celebrations. They are not frat parties. They are closer to church revivals or political rallies.
I remember my wife specifically commenting after the STL show in 2010 how it felt like a frat party. Eddie spends the entire show getting progressively drunker, changes song lyrics to include dumb-assed drug references, and the audience is full of people only half paying attention and behaving like belligerent jackasses. When I saw Pearl Jam in 2000, they did their own thing onstage and involved the audience only to the degree that they cared to be involved; these days it sometimes seems like Ed is specifically catering to the obnoxious idiot who is ruining the show for everyone else, concerned less with his relationship to the music and more with getting him to scream really loud by any means necessary.
Yea! Yea!
This is pretty true and for a few years I was fine with it. i thought the band deserved/earned that right after so many years of the opposite approach. SUre, let loose, have some fun. Time to get back to business. Another indicator of this is Eds pandering to the crowd about breaking curfew every show now. It is reaction bate for the sake of placating.
Minor grubs and in the end not a huge deal because, unlike KD, I thought the St. Louis show was the best post 06 show ive seen.
digster wrote:I also think those earlier shows were collective experiences as well, not just the band playing in the corner treating the audiences' concerns with irrelevance. I think it's just that they had a lot of different kinds of experiences in those older shows, usually transitioning from tour to tour. It could be darker or more celebratory. I think the feeling the shows have now is a great one, and I leave feeling elevated, but they really only do that one thing, or feel, now. 2003 feels like the last year where the shows, in addition to being fun as hell, had their own feel to them.
The shows matched the bands mood. That was exciting. You really didnt know what kind of mood ed was in. That reflected throughout the show. It was a truly emotional experience. They used the music to work through whatever they were going through as a collective unit. Now it is 100% party time.
I thought the STL show was tremendous, Strat--I was just commenting on how I think people's "frat party" assertions make sense to me.
I actually think I've enjoyed every PJ show I've seen a little more than the last one, in a way that's largely unrelated to how good the performances themselves were or how the band themselves approach the show.
