Red Mosquito

Hey, I want to talk Pearl Jam improvs. Remember when the band actually came up with improvs? Crazy, I know. And remember when some of them were better than songs that made it on to albums? I really miss this element of their live performance. I personally have seen Pearl Jam 17 times but was only lucky to hear one improv (St Louis 2003, which had some potential but was pretty meh overall).

Anyway, I wanted to gauge your thoughts on what you feel are the bands' best improv performances. I personally have three that stand out:

1. Open Road - Phoenix 1995


2. Portland 2000


3. Mansfield 2000


How about you?

Here's a few great ones:

"To The Moon" - Nurnberg 2000
"I Wanna Go improv" before Rearviewmirror - State College 2003
"Portugal improv" - Lisbon 2 2006

stonefury wrote:Mansfield 2000

That's the only one I got to see live and I'm so grateful that I was able to see the band during a point in their career when they still did this kind of stuff.

My favorites tend to be the pre-Habit improvs from the 98 tour.

I know it's not cool to discuss 1992 here, but basically every show had a decent if not great improv. 2000 had some great ones as well (i.e, 6/22, 6/25, 8/4, 8/9, 8/29, 11/3 off the top of my head).

8/30, not 8/29

Ah yes, good old 1992. Brass in My Pocket/Meaningless is my favorite of those.

3/6/03 - Nagoya

Improv>Immortality

Love this one.

Here's a compilation of improvs from 1992-1995 I made that's worth checking out:

01. Stockholm Improv (2-7-92)
02. Netherlands Improv I (3-1-92)
03. Netherlands Improv II (3-1-92)
04. Sayin' No (Netherlands, 3-2-92)
05. Boston Improv (4-12-92)
06. Straight To Hell Now (Netherlands, 3-6-92)
07. New Orleans Improv (4-20-92)
08. The Part Where I Play The Pope (Milan, 6-17-92)
09. Shower The People/Brass in the Pocket/Meaningless (6-18-92)
10. Zurich Improv/Suggestion (6-18-92)
11. Selfish Man (Paris, 6-22-92)
12. Paris Improv (6-22-92)
13. London Improv (7-11-92)
14. Some People (Phoenix, 9-8-92)
15. Honolulu Improv (9-26-92)
16. I Could Prove To You (San Francisco, 10-28-93)
17. Indio Improv (11-5-93)
18. Seattle Improv (12-7-93)
19. Jack Irons Chant (Seattle, 2-6-95)
20. Springfield Improv (4-6-94)
21. Casper, WY Soundcheck Improv (6-16-95)
22. Fallin' Down (Red Rocks, 6-20-05)
23. Open Road (Phoenix, 9-13-95)
24. Unknown Improv I
25. Unknown Improv II

http://wegotshit.blogspot.com/2010/06/l ... -1995.html

I always liked the "Life" improv from the '98 West Palm Beach show. Can't find it on Youtube, but it's on pearljamlive