Pearl Jam: 20-years anniversary

As all the fans head to celebrate 20-th anniversary of Pearl Jam, Jessica Letkemann prepared a very nice book. This is her note:

There is so much more to the story of how Pearl Jam formed than has ever been shared. To uncover it, I interviewed Eddie Vedder, Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, Matt Cameron, Chris Cornell and other key players, I dug up original 1990 Pearl Jam artifacts and hunted down rare audio, I triangulated dates and gathered every fact.
To celebrate Pearl Jam’s 20th Birthday, I’m proud to present the fruits of over 10 years of exhaustive original research.
Brew a pot of coffee, fire up your printer, and prepare for a long, engrossing read in unprecedented detail about the events of 1990, the year that a series of magically wild coincidences brought together the unlikely group of people that became Pearl Jam.
 
Highlights
Discover the amazing events of 1990
* Ed’s long-lost band with a member of Rage Against The Machine
* The Mother Love Bone riffs that survived to become Pearl Jam classics
* Eddie explains making “Momma-Son”
* The true story of Ed’s TWO “first weeks” in Seattle with Mookie Blaylock in October 1990
* Cornell talks Temple of the Dog, and Stone divulges the Pearl Jam fan-favorite that almost had lyrics by Cornell
* Stone, Jeff, and Eddie recalling the first show, first song, and first weeks
* Much, much more

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2009 Backspacer Tour Australasian Leg Compilation

Although Backspacer tour in Australia and New Zealand consisted only of seven dates, Pearl Jam tried hard to make it special. The band introduced some covers to local band's songs, including If You Want Blood by AC/DC (Mike McCready helped on back vocals) and couple of Neil Finn's songs with Neil himself on stage. And his son Liam performed with Pearl Jam at six shows out of seven. Three all-new covers were presented at three last gigs. Also Eddie's friend Ben Harper continued to tour with Pearl Jam and together they performed Red Mosquito at every show with Ben on lap steel guitar (another interesting version with altered solos included) and sometimes on vocals on Indifference.
As for the band, Mike once again completely changed solos for Off He Goes and Boom Gaspar finally learned how to play piano right on Love Reign O'er Me. Also I selected very solid classic version of In My Tree with slightly altered solo.
Ed's voice was constantly improving through the tour, it was much better than in States and in final shows it was almost perfect. Unfortunately, in Sydney Eddie has got terrible flue and his singing was hopeless fight against pain and heat. Fortunately, Sydney people gave Ed all support they could give and with all the band on fire saved that great show.

1. Small Town
2. Not For You (Ed's story of the local word "schoolie") (Modern Girl)
3. In My Tree
4. Off He Goes
5. Red Mosquito (with Ben Harper on lap steel guitar)
6. Indifference (with Ben Harper on vocals)
7. Love, Reign O'er Me
8. Throw Your Arms Around Me (with Liam Finn)
9. Better Be Home Soon (with Neil Finn & Liam Finn)
10. I Got You (with Neil Finn & Liam Finn)
11. If You Want Blood / You Got It + Blood
12. (band presentation: call me Eddie-ask-me-for-a-drink!)
13. Yellow Ledbetter (AC/DC riffs)

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2009 Pre-Backspacer Warm-up Tour Compilation

This small tour was a warm-up prior to the release of Backspacer album and consisted of 9 dates in Europe and North America. The band played some songs from new album: The Fixer, Got Some, The End and Supersonic (live debut). Another debut at this tour was Brother - it was performed just one time in 1991 as a instrumental track and now it returned as a full song (after release on Ten Reissue). Rats was played many times with Ben intro, probably to the memory of Michael Jackson suddenly died that year.
2009 was another disastrous year for Eddie's voice and the first show of the tour - Virgin Festival at Olympic park in Calgary - was one of the worst ever shows vocally for Pearl Jam (Eddie was not prepared for the hight of that place and found himself completely out of breath). However the reception was warm and the whole tour was definitely successful. Some vocal problems continued, but later shows (especially European) were almost good in terms of Ed's voice and absolutely fantastic in terms of audience support. My favorite show from this tour is Rotterdam - fire in band's guitars and extremely loud crowd made pretty simple set-list sound great! Also I think that other European shows were better, at least in terms of audience singing.
This tour's compilation is short so it would not take too much time to listen. Ed changed some lyrics in Lukin, there are some alterations in In Hiding usual solo, Supersonic is slightly different early version. Nothingman from Rotterdam is powered by very intense audience support, Rolling Stones' Angie was played as a snippet. And, as always, look for some cool jams on Porch and Even Flow.

1. Supersonic
2. Brother
3. Even Flow
4. Lukin
5. In Hiding
6. Nothingman
7. (Ben) Rats
8. (Angie)
9. Alive
10. Black (We Belong Together)
11. Porch

Updated to ver. 1.01 on 2010-09-02: Removed In My Tree, because more special classic-like version with altered Mike's ending solo added to 2009 Australasian tour compilation.

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2008 US Tour Compilation

In 2008 Pearl Jam completed small US tour, focusing on the East coast. It included 13 official dates and one secret show (only audience bootlegs available) in New York. After powerful 2006 World tour Eddie was on his way down and opening dates for 2008 were disrupted by his vocal problems. As usual, Ed improved show by show and near the end of the tour, from Madison Square Garden night 2 his was good. Not perfect, but good. Fans elected Hartford to be the best show of the tour. But in my opinion, Hartford was great only in terms of it's set-list and Mike's solos, but Ed's voice was not there. I think the best shows were Madison Square Garden night 2 and both Boston performances. And also audience singing was loudest there.
Highlights for this tour are the debut of the old song All Night (it had two slightly different versions), hugely reworked Who You Are, reworked W.M.A., return of classic version of Garden. Also Love Reign O'er Me and No More were played almost at every show. Another special thing for this tour is the sound quality of official bootlegs. It was really big improvement over last boots - wider dynamic range with powerful bass (most powerful so far - 2009 was not so powerful) and better treble.
Disappointment for this tour was Boom Gaspar's piano "playing". He plays piano on almost every song where he doesn't play organ and for some strange reason it was recorded at very high sound level. I was shocked, when piano on Down was even louder than Mike's brilliant solo guitar. And the worst thing is that Boom is not a piano player at all - he should attend children's music school first. I really think Boom completely destroyed Release, Down, Black and some other great guitar songs. The only good thing is that he was reduced from Madison Square Garden and this is another reason why the last shows are the best.
This compilation is like a full Pearl Jam show with three peaks and two sections to slow down. Look for very touching set of slow songs: Footsteps-Off He Goes-Immortality (with fine Mike's improv. solos), rare tags and very loud audience on Indifference.

1. Sometimes
2. All Night
3. Wishlist (improv tag: Give love to this world)
4. Daughter (War)
5. Even Flow
6. W.M.A.
7. Garden
8. Who You Are (2008 version)
9. Nothingman
10. Porch
11. Guaranteed
12. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
13. Present Tense
14. Footsteps
15. Off He Goes
16. Immortality
17. Better Man (Save It For Later)
18. Rearviewmirror
19. No More
20. Black Diamond
21. Black (We Belong Together)
22. Indifference
23. Rockin' In The Free World

Updated to ver. 1.01 on 2010-09-04: Removed Love Reign O'er Me, because much better version added to 2009 Australasian tour compilation.

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2008 Covers Live

Some good covers from 2008 US Tour. Black Diamond is a song by Kiss and was performed only two times so far (recorded once in official quality). I actually don't know who is the author of It Rains On Me, but this rarity also was performed as a song only one time (and once as a snippet in 2003). Love Reign O'er Me is taken from VH1 Honors The Who show later that year. No Boom Gaspar on keys and it's great, because I don't think he is any kind of good piano player (there was another guy).

1. It Rains On Me
2. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (The Beatles cover)
3. Black Diamond (Kiss cover)
4. Love, Reign O'er Me (The Who cover)
5. The Real Me (The Who cover)
6. All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan cover)

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