As i sit home today, with a brutal cold, i am sifting thru some older PJ performances.

I came across this and cannot fuckin believe that it was 17 years ago! i remember watching this live, i was 15yo at the time, and already magnetized by this band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gn2NFlix3w

Just look at the emotions and energy they had, as compared to today.....

This is by far their single greatest performance ever! (imo)

You can see in the begininng of the song Eddie is nervous, but his nervousness soon turns to emotion, and the guys are just ELECTRIC!

I miss THIS Pearl Jam.....now i know there are alot of members on here who were fans back in those days, and completely understand where im coming from, but to the "newbies" here, you just had to be a fan back then to TRULY grasp the power this band once had.

No Code era (late95-1996) put an end to thses type of performances..........

that sent chills down my spine

Wow. Thanks for that.

I wish Eddie would do that spoken word "daddy didnt give affection..." part all the time.

i miss being 1 or 2 years old depending on which half of the year those awards were in

i used to be able to pick out what brand every car was

now THAT is emotion and energy. Miss it.

two things I notice every time I watch this performance:

they scroll away from ed right as he's about to stick his hand in his mouth (arranged like a gun)
how his voice just shreds this version....


Amazing that they gave MTV exactly what they wanted. PJ wanted to play Sonic Reducer hence the first line after the Jeremy performance....but their performance of Jeremy for MTV was just legendary. Right up there with Britney Spears lip syncing on MTV in present time.

word, i love that

It reminds me of Jim Morrison

Yup. That song is freaking great here. Timeless song. Timeless version.

it chars my heart to always keep you talking,
talking about the good old days
cause there are no good old days
these are the good old days

Yeah, just sitting back trying to recapture
a little of the glory of, well time slips away
and leaves you with nothing mister but
boring stories of glory days

All joking/springsteen quoting aside, I have to say that that particular performance of jeremy is my all time favorite, and i can remember being 13 and begging my big brother at the time to let me stay up to catch it....

I must admit that I miss this version of pj too....the early tours where almost every show was intense. It was good times sure, but its just not realistic for them to be that now. I have a crazy friend from back in the day who says absurd, gross, yet totally offensively funny things like the following (and i quote a recent email from him) :

"If I ever meet Ed, I'm gonna tell him that Ticketmaster thugs beat me within an inch of my life, took all my money, and then they took me hostage and drove me to an abortion clinic where they just yanked the baby out, blew up the building, disemboweled the doc and told me to EAT THE AFTERBIRTH ! Maybe then they can get their true anger and emotion back again and stop being fucking lazy, rich, old men who write bad albums with horrible sins upon music for songs. Albums with avocados on the cover and trying to be 25 when they're clearly NOT anymore!"

Just so you know, my friend (who is an idiot, but he humors me.) was as huge into pj as i was growing up, but left them after vitalogy. While I appreciate what they do now, and love the fact that they've managed to stick around with albums that (to me anyway) are as vital and relevant as ever, I can see where my buds comin from with this, I miss the intense "Josh turn these lights out !" era too, but it'd be silly now if they were all full of piss and vinegar in their 40's...imagine ed hangin off the rafters, or still having to ignore the utter ridiculousness that was Jeff's hat collection. How cringe inducingly embarrassing would it be to see Vedders receding hairline 20 feet up in the air hangin from the lighting rig NOWADAYS ?

Having said all that, I hold a special place in my heart for that 1991-94 time when I first fell for pj, I think we all can agree that they're a much better more dynamic band now, just maybe more than a little kinder gentler pj which is also great too, just in a dare i say, more "mature" in way. I'll always have a great love for the era when the band members onstage would lose themselves in the music and just rock the fuck out,jumping around while ed treated the venue like it was his own personal jungle gym before droppin in on the pit.....

And the guitars actually had some fucking BALLS to them back then, can anyone please explain to me what happened to THAT live guitar sound ??

Anyhow, I'm not gonna do the "You younger fans just missed out." cause thats lame, and there's plenty to admire about the band now... I guess I'm glad that Ed doesn't use that full out growl anymore, cause by the 1995 tour, he sounded awful. there's a difference between controlled aggression, and losing your voice altogether. For the sake of his voice and a long career I'm glad ed calmed down, now if he would just STOP SMOKING.....

sorry for the ramble....

justin

That was 17 years ago. Age 17 years, then see if you're the same person. Change happens. Live with it.

Me too!

But apparently I slept lots, which could really come in handy now.