PEARL JAM
"OUT HERE IN THE FIELDS"
Improvs, Covers, Rarities, Favorites
Audience Recordings 1991-2005
https://www.mediafire.com/file/tjujici0 ... 9.rar/file
CD1
1. Wash (New York, 7/13/91)*
2. Cropduster (Seattle, 12/5/02)
3. Moore Theatre Improv #2 (Seattle, 2/6/95)
4. The Kids Are Alright (New Orleans, 11/16/93)
5. Black Red Yellow (Budapest, 11/17/96)
6. Instrumental Jam (Phoenix, 9/13/95)
7. Angel (Dallas, 11/12/93)
8. I Got You (Brisbane, 3/22/95)
9. Last Soldier (Seattle, 4/9/04)
10. Improv (Rapid City, 6/24/98)
11. W.M.A. (Missoula, 2/8/95)
12. Moore Theatre Improv #3 (Seattle, 2/6/95)
13. Alone (Atlanta, 4/2/94)
14. Man of the Hour (Boston, 9/29/04)
15. No Way (Atlanta, 9/1/98)
16. Hold On Improv (Boston, 4/11/94)
17. Nothingman (Milan, 11/13/96)
18. Breath (Paris, 2/11/92)
19. Crazy Mary (with Bill Frisell) (Seattle, 3/18/05)
20. Indifference (with Brendan O'Brien) (New Orleans, 11/17/93)
CD2
1. Hard to Imagine (Montreal, 8/20/98)
2. Dock of the Bay (Murfreesboro, 3/26/94)
3. Improv (Las Vegas, 12/1/93)
4. Ghost (Seattle, 12/9/02)
5. Against the '70's (with Dave Grohl) (Brisbane, 3/22/95)
6. Open Road Improv (Phoenix, 9/13/95)
7. Sad (Grand Rapids, 10/3/04)
8. Out of My Mind (Springfield, 4/6/94)
9. A Bit Too Much Improv (Springfield, 4/6/94)
10. All or None (St. Louis, 10/5/04)
11. Satan's Bed (Fort Lauderdale, 10/7/96)
12. Moore Theatre Improv #1 (Seattle, 2/6/95)
13. The Ship Song (Morrison, 6/20/95)
14. Improv (Charleston, 10/5/96)
15. Sleight of Hand (Asheville, 10/6/04)
16. Improv (Chicago, 3/10/94)
17. Little Wing/Maggot Brain (Milwaukee, 7/9/95)
18. I've Got a Feeling (Springfield, 11/3/91)
19. Around the Bend (Seattle, 9/14/96)
Sourced from various audience recordings all available in 'Pearl Jam Bootlegs Megapack' on Pearl Jam Bootlegs Reddit
*except d2t2, sourced from No F'n Messiah bootleg
Gently and imperfectly tweaked in pursuit of volume consistency
*"Wash" cuts in during instrumental intro (present on source recording)
This is a compilation I made for my own listening pleasure that I thought might bring some enjoyment to others too. Back in the mid-to-late-ish 2000's, when the proliferation of music blogs and link-slathered message boards like PJAmerica made the voracious consumption of low-bitrate mp3 bootlegs easier than ever, I would routinely start my day by burning one or two of these low-bitrate mp3 bootlegs to CD-R, and then listening to them at ear-splitting volumes on my 90-minute round trip daily commute to Illinois State University. Like a world-class dork, I kept a list in the back of one of my notebooks of highlights, favorite versions, special tracks, etc., with pie-in-the sky dreams of someday of making a sort of ultimate live PJ compilation, not dissimilar to Green Habit (which already existed, unbeknownst to me) and, later, the Definitive Live compilation by Ridleybradout and JWB. Never one to follow through on large scale projects like this, I eventually moved on and abandoned this idea to rot in the back of my behavioral psychology notebook, never to be revisited, not least because the quality of work that others seemed to do on such compilations far exceeded anything I ever dreamed of doing myself.
Still, over the years I would periodically think back to that list, remembering great performances, oddities, etc., that occupied airspace on those car trips, and find myself missing the sense of mystery and surprise that I got from plumbing the depths of the band's catalog without regard for fidelity or clarity. For as generous as Pearl Jam have been with their official bootlegs (and they really have been), and for as incredible of a job as other compilers have done of making beautiful sounding, immaculately curated collections of the many multitrack/soundboard recordings, there is still an overwhelming amount of music from Pearl Jam's first decade that can only be heard on stealth recordings made by sly bootleggers with handheld taping devices, and more than once I've found myself wishing for a well-made compilation of this stuff suited to my own tastes. So, very leisurely over the past year or two, I've gone back and relistened to some of this stuff in the hopes of making a collection for myself to serve this purpose. This is that compilation.
There have been enough high quality soundboards, FM broadcasts, ALD recordings, etc., even from 1991-1998, to give us pro-quality versions of many of the nightly staples and album tracks, so this compilation specifically focuses on audience recordings (hence the title!) of songs, or versions of songs, that are a bit more elusive. So, things like "Ramblings" from '93, "Everyday People," etc., while conceptually right at home here, aren't in the spirit of the collection, which makes no effort to be complete, definitive, or anything other than an enjoyable roundup of performances that, even after years of releases, remain uncanonized. Unsurprisingly, the 1991-1998 era comprises the majority of the collection, but these performances are rounded out by some rarities and favorites from the official bootleg era that for whatever reason have yet to be officially released by the band (the 2002 Riot Act warm-up shows, the 2004 Vote for Change tour, and a few others).
A note on the sound: Despite being very familiar with Audacity and having 10 years of experience using it, I am not an audio engineer and have no real skills for "remastering" recordings, so I try to approach projects like this with a sense of humility and self-awareness. As such, I include the note about the recordings being tweaked for volume consistency more as a mea culpa than as any kind of advertisement of improved sound. My general approach to a project like this is, "Will I, in my limited capacity, do more harm than good by fiddling with these sound files?" If I feel like the answer is yes, I'll leave them alone and just live with whatever inconsistencies naturally exist between them. But in this case, given the variety of sources present (and the imperfect nature of the original recordings), the differences in volume levels were just too severe to not at least make an effort to smooth out the flow. In some cases, this meant simply adjusting the track volume; in others, there were some other, less purist-approved methods applied.
With audience recordings, I find that there is often a (relatively undynamic) "core" of a sound wave, with anomalous spikes based on ambient factors -- close clappers, talkers, loud bursts of applause, etc. In these cases, I tried to reduce those spikes (using gentle limiting) so that the "main" sound wave could be brought up to match the other tracks. When that didn't work, I tried gently applying compression to achieve the same result. In every case, I tried to let my ears be the judge, and in every case, if I even suspected that something I did might have compromised the sound in a negative way, or changed the general shape of a soundwave in a way that felt like the natural rises and falls had been lost, I reversed the effect and tried something else. The results are not perfect. But I do think the overall project sounds better -- in the sense of it being a more pleasing, fluid listen -- after the adjustments than it would have had everything been left as is.
Enjoy!
KD 12/23
