Essential Live Albums

[liebzz]

I’ll just note with 3 shows left to go on the 2000 tour that I am still not sick of the Binaural songs.

[Vitalogist]

How the west was won is essential to me

[liebzz]

Led Zeppelin - How the West Was Won

I never really gave this one much of a spin. It came out during one of many Zep lulls, where I wasn’t really listening to them much and certainly at that moment lacked patience for their long expositions. Returning it to it now, I can see how much I missed. This is Zeppelin at the height of their live powers. Their playing is massive, though I also really loved the Going to California / That’s the Way / Bron-Y-Aur Stomp run. The Ocean feels like it’s bringing the house down even though it is introduced as a new song. Dazed and Confused sounds rather focused for its extended run time. Whole Lotta Love has a great medley mixed in the middle and they seem like they’ve got just the right balance going.

The Essential Performance: Bron-Y-Aur Stomp

Up Next: Grateful Dead - Europe ‘72

Me too.

[liebzz]

Pearl Jam - San Diego, California 10/25/2000

This is another “hometown” show. And it starts pretty great, particularly on a Breakerfall that is scorching, as in I like this song when they are playing it but it never sticks with me. It’s usually just one of the momentum drivers of the first part of the set, but Mike’s solo here is wild and it makes it the most memorable performance of that song. It would have been the top performance of the show if not for a phenomenal Immortality towards the end of the first set that nearly rivals Jack Irons’s take on the song (Jack wins Immortality). The remainder of the show is very good, but nothing I recall tops these two songs from this night.

The Essential Performance: Immortality (and Breakerfall)

Up Next: Pearl Jam - Boise, ID 11/3/2000

[AndySlash]

Up Next: Pearl Jam - Boise, ID 11/3/2000

show of the us tour, imo. if not for katowice, might be the show of whole 2000 tour (that i've heard, anyway).

[liebzz]

Pearl Jam - Boise, Idaho 11/3/2000

The penultimate stop on the tour, if Pearl Jam was road weary and ready to be done, you’d never know it. Full of fire and energy, the band stomps through one of the best shows it seems from the tour. This show is highly regarded among fans, though as much for the exceeding of expectations as the show itself. Eddie makes note of the significance of being the second to last stop, with only 2 shows in Seattle to go. Everything here is pretty special, though the moment that truly stands out to me is the lead in and performance of Don’t Be Shy. I myself might be getting a bit fatigued, but one more to go here before we get a short Pearl Jam break.

The Essential Performance: Don’t Be Shy

Up Next: Pearl Jam - Seattle, Washington 11/6/2000

[Happy Trees]

Up Next: Pearl Jam - Boise, ID 11/3/2000

show of the us tour, imo. if not for katowice, might be the show of whole 2000 tour (that i've heard, anyway).

Yeah, it's up there. The other US shows that stand out above the others for me are Saratoga, Pittsburgh and Chicago.

[liebzz]

Pearl Jam - Seattle, Washington 11/6/2000

23 years to the day to close out the 2000 tour Ape/Man portion of this live album journey. It’s been a long long time since I heard this show (the Eddie-isms though are clearly recalled from TB2K). The band is on tonight, flying on all cylinders perhaps with the pressure off now that they are home. This is an emotion packed show from start to finish, from the blazing first set to the encore duo of Off He Goes and Light Years, to the closing bars on the rocked out The Kids Are Alright, Baba O’Riley, and Yellow Ledbetter. But the most emotional impact comes at the end of the first encore, an epic and stunning Alive that simply carries the weight of 75 shows, a horrific tragedy and everything else band survived in one 7 minute packed punch. A moment for the ages from a show for the ages.

The Essential Performance: Alive

Up Next: Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - Live From Mars

[liebzz]

Forgot to mention Parting Ways - as definitive a version as you’ll ever get.

[liebzz]

Alright! In season playlist - I made a Pearl Jam show out of my favorite versions from the Ape/Man shows - including the symphonic Baba O’Riley! Enjoy:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ZlYe ... LKgiS02Ztw

Baba O’Riley (London Philharmonic Orchestra)
Release (Atlanta, GA 8/7/00)
Interstellar Overdrive (Tampa, FL 8/12/00)
Corduroy (Tampa, FL 8/12/00)
Breakerfall (San Diego, CA 8/25/00)
Go (Mansfield, MA 8/29/00)
Tremor Christ (Detroit, MI 10/7/00)
Nothing As It Seems (London, England 5/30/00)
Sleight Of Hand (Katowice, Poland 6/16/00)
Smile (Cardiff, Wales 6/6/00)
Mankind (Jones Beach, NY 8/25/00)
Present Tense (Columbus, OH 8/21/00)
In My Tree (Jones Beach, NY 8/25/00)
Daughter (Jones Beach, NY 8/24/00)
Black (Chicago, IL 10/9/00)
Better Man (Mansfield, MA 8/29/00)
Immortality (San Diego, CA 8/25/00)
Insignificance (Verona, Italy 6/20/00)
Rearviewmirror (Milan, Italy 6/22/00)
Encore Break (Boise, ID 11/3/00)
Don’t Be Shy (Boise, ID 11/3/00)
I Got You (Verona, Italy 6/20/00)
Fuckin’ Up (Paris, France 6/8/00)
Crown of Thorns (Las Vegas, NV 10/22/00)
Alive (Seattle, WA 11/6/00)
Soon Forget (Seattle, WA 11/6/00)
Baba O’Riley (Chicago, IL 10/9/00)
Yellow Ledbetter (Jones Beach, NY 8/25/00)

[Higgs]

Sweet. Cheers liebzz!

[liebzz]

Also, my personal ranking of the Ape/Man boots (I mean, I spent enough time listening to all these the last few weeks:

Seattle
Chicago
Milan
Katowice
Las Vegas
Jones Beach 3
Cardiff
Boise
Tampa
Verona
London
Mansfield
San Diego
Atlanta
Columbus
Paris
Jones Beach 2
Detroit

[VinylGuy]

Pearl Jam - Seattle, Washington 11/6/2000

23 years to the day to close out the 2000 tour Ape/Man portion of this live album journey. It’s been a long long time since I heard this show (the Eddie-isms though are clearly recalled from TB2K). The band is on tonight, flying on all cylinders perhaps with the pressure off now that they are home. This is an emotion packed show from start to finish, from the blazing first set to the encore duo of Off He Goes and Light Years, to the closing bars on the rocked out The Kids Are Alright, Baba O’Riley, and Yellow Ledbetter. But the most emotional impact comes at the end of the first encore, an epic and stunning Alive that simply carries the weight of 75 shows, a horrific tragedy and everything else band survived in one 7 minute packed punch. A moment for the ages from a show for the ages.

The Essential Performance: Alive

Up Next: Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - Live From Mars

I got this boot, ask for it for someone who came from the us, and he got me the two seattle shows. Probably my favorite boot from all times? maybe? not sure but damn this is Pearl Jam at its finest.

[liebzz]

Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals - Live From Mars

Few live albums seem to have the sort of massive impact for the artist themselves than this one. Ben Harper’s career, at least in my listening experience, feels like it can almost be cut in two on what he produced up until this release, and then everything that followed. To this point, Ben Harper seemed to oscillate between folk and hard rock, the weissenborn plugged in or acoustic. The Chair (IYKYK). A man who could raise the roof or more impressively command so much respect from the audience you could hear a pin drop during his solo sets. All this is represented here, though perhaps skewed a bit since it’s a side one electric side two acoustic thing (his acoustic sets were typically mini sets if I remember correctly). That notwithstanding, there are essential moments in here that justify his reputation - that heavy lick just before the band kicks in on Ground on Down is the badass drama we need to intro any song, and the rest delivers that crazy intensity, while Glory & Consequence slays, Ben shows range in his cover of Sexual Healing and utilizes beat box for an extended Steal My Kisses, and the epic electric finale of Faded/Whole Lotta Love goes into another stratosphere. On the acoustic side, Roses From My Friends is stunning, Please Bleed is wonderfully transformed out of its loud-quiet-loud dynamic expertly, and Like A King/I’ll Rise is poignant and Ben Harper at the top of his solo acoustic game. This release always makes me long for the days he performed on The Chair exclusively, even if I can still appreciate the modernized Ben Harper that followed this release.

The Essential Performance: Faded/Whole Lotta Love

Up Next: Disco Biscuits - Steele’s Reels, Vol. 2: 8-25-01 Wilmington, DE

[wease]

Disco Biscuits?!? I’ve not thought about them in a long time.

[liebzz]

Yeah, listening now. They are still around and I have no background with them, but hey, giving it a shot. These songs are really long after a few weeks of nearly all Pearl Jam.

[wease]

I was never really into them but I had a couple of boots. They had a couple of tunes I enjoyed.

I got into Umphreys McGee pretty heavy for about 6 months then all of a sudden a switch went off and I couldn’t bear the thought of another extensive jam from them. I’ll check out some interesting covers they do every now and then but other than that I’m pretty much over them.

[liebzz]

Umphree’s McGee is a band I have heard here and there but never fully dove in. I will give them their moment during the course of all this. I think they are a bit more straight forward than the Disco Biscuits. I am in the second set and these songs really go on for a long time.

[wease]

Umphree’s McGee is a band I have heard here and there but never fully dove in. I will give them their moment during the course of all this. I think they are a bit more straight forward than the Disco Biscuits. I am in the second set and these songs really go on for a long time.

Yeah. Nothing like a 2-hour show only having 3 songs…

Conversely, when I saw The Ramones open for PJ in ‘95, they did 37 songs in 35 minutes.

[liebzz]

Ha. I saw them in 2006 maybe opening the Big Summer Classic with guys like Keller Williams and String Cheese Incident playing. I have no recollection really of their set.