There is no place in the world I’d rather be than at a Pearl Jam show, excluding my wedding and possibly the birth of my children (we’ll see). Yet I rarely listen to Pearl Jam bootlegs (I don’t know if that makes me more or less suited to review a live compilation). They are primarily a studio band for me, and it is only a very small and select handful of songs (Satan’s Bed from Atlanta 94, Even Flow from Uniondale 03, Porch from the unplugged, maybe one or two others) that ever make it into my regular listening rotation. I think this is because live Pearl Jam is something that needs to be experienced , rather than listened to. The music is felt as much as it is heard, and this has been notoriously hard to capture, even on the best bootlegs. Pearl Jam has a reputation for being one of the finest live bands around today, perhaps one of the best ever, and it’s this intangible factor that makes the live experience so compelling. There are plenty of bands that can play better and singers that can sound better, although perhaps not with Pearl Jam’s consistency. The varied set lists are great, but that’s there for the camp followers. It doesn’t explain the mass appeal. There’s something else there, something that comes from but transcends the music.

That’s what Live On Ten legs has to capture, and that’s a tall order.

The overall sound quality is much better than what we’ve gotten on recent bootlegs, and the song selection was well chosen. Nothing is repeated from LO2L and that’s a ballsy move in itself. Are there any other bands who’ve released live compilations that refuse to play the same hit twice? (that’s only semi-rhetorical—are there?) Given the fact that they’re not duplicating songs, and understandably wanting to draw a bit more (but not much more) from their most recent record and their biggest record (and Ten was underrepresented on LO2L) there’s a nice cross section of songs that faithfully reproduces the diversity of a typical Pearl Jam set list, right down to the random covers. The disc does a particularly good job capturing Eddie at his modern day best, the way his voice sounds like a damp fire—raging and sputtering and refusing to go out. Plus they seemed to pick songs where he wasn’t really overdoing his somewhat irritating modern vocal affectations. My one complaint is that the songs never quite feel loud enough, immersive enough, to begin to reproduce the experience of being there live

The record begins with a cover of Joe Strummer’s Arms Aloft. It’s a strong cover and it faithfully captures the spirit of the original (and I never noticed how much Eddie sings like Joe Strummer these days). The band is clearly having fun, and it’s a nice reminder of just how great a cover band Pearl Jam is, how much they clearly believe in the power of music and celebrate the majesty of their heroes. But Arms Aloft also feels a bit out of place. Pearl Jam concerts almost always begin with a ‘statement’—a song that not only announces that the band is here, but that the audience is in for a journey, something intense and larger than themselves. This is almost too playful, too casual. It seems better suited to a second encore, when there’s nothing left to prove and it’s there’s some space for fun for fun’s sake. At first I found myself wishing they had included one of their bread and butter covers, but this almost feels like a gift, something unexpected and surprising. I had never heard them play this one before, and it’s always nice to hear something new.

It feels like the disc really begins with the opening notes of World Wide Suicide. Here is the sense of movement, the sense of importance, that sets the listener up for a ride. It feels frantic without feeling rushed—like it has to get something out before it loses hold of what it was (rather than rushing to be done so we can move on to something else). The outro is particularly strong, with Eddie’s snarling, sarcastic vocals and the band’s furious playing. This is one of my all time favorite Pearl Jam songs, and one that has always frustrated me because I had yet to hear a live version that really captures the anger and hurt and fuck it all attitude of the studio version. But this is probably the best live performance of the song I’ve heard. I wish there was a little more from S/T on the comp, but WWS is able to carry the torch for the record.

Animal sounds great following World Wide Suicide. This is a song I want to hear at every show I attend, and while this isn’t the best version of this song I’ve ever heard, it has the churning intensity that makes Animal feel surprisingly timeless. This is the first moment in the set where the audience really takes center stage, and that’s a key element in capturing the actual live experience—just how interactive and in sync audience and band are—the way they feed each off of each other. It’s nice to see them actually pay some attention to trying to capture this

I like how they start this compilation off with 5 fast songs and the way each one builds off the energy of the previous one. It really helps lift Got Some. This is a song that sounds a little anemic on Backspacer, but what sounds exhausted on the record has a breathy kind of power to it, like you’re trying to keep your running partner going in the last stages of a marathon, when the finish line isn’t in sight, but close enough to imagine. As always Matt and Jeff are the heroes here, but the whole band makes sure the song never lets up.

State of Love and Trust was a pleasant surprise—not so much its inclusion but how good it is. The guitars have a sharpness and a heaviness to them that is so often missing, and Eddie thankfully sings the actual lyrics instead of the terrible ‘both sides of the bed’ change he inexplicably insists on working into the live versions. They do an especially fine job capturing the absurd playful menace of the bridge and outro, and again the band is playing the hell out of the song. If only it was louder. They’re not doing themselves justice. If they’re trying to smack me in the face (and they are)let them do it.

I Am Mine is one of my all time favorite Pearl Jam songs (up there with WWS and Comatose as my favorite things the band did this decade), and another song where they never managed to reproduce the incredible atmosphere of the studio version. Still, they come closer here than I’ve ever heard them do so before. It captures the sense of searching and discovery at the heart of the song. I Am Mine finally sounds like the journey it is, and Mike’s outro solo, if not quite as cathartic as the studio version (one of the best 10 second blocks in the whole catalog), is still really good.

Unthought Known is one of the few places where I think the compilation stumbles a bit. The placement works well, and I never noticed quite how nicely this song complements I Am Mine. One of the cool things about a show is that you get to see songs interact with each other and be a part of each other’s stories. Eddie sounds pretty good, but he stumbles a little bit (although he recovers) during the two most critical moments in the song (gems and rhinestones and ‘you’ll be no one’s rival). Since the rest of the song is a little thin (Unthought Known works better as a solo song) it is critical that they nail these two moments, since they have to carry the rest of the song. The band plays everything else here with gusto, the problem is that Unthought Known is a little underwritten, and so what they’re playing doesn’t feel essential.

And this comes up in a few places, but I’ll say it here. We HAVE to stop with the unnecessary handclaps. We sound like assholes and it’s unnecessary and distracting. Cheer, scream, stamp your feet, move around—but stop with the clapping.

I was a little wary when I saw Rearviewmirror on the tracklist This is a beast of a song on Vs. but live it loses the tight burning focus it has on the record and becomes more about the noodling bridge and the pounding outro. The problem is that this really needs the lights, especially the strobe lights at the end. This is probably the only Pearl Jam staple I’d say this about, but RVM needs its props and it doesn’t have them. They usually lose me with the live improvs but they do a good job here until the end, where it seems like they lose track of each other for a little bit. But they rally, and by the end I can see the lights.

The Fixer is a great live song, and it sounds good here (but I bet there’s a better version floating around). The ayes and uh-huh’s that start the song, which feel out of place on the record, feel especially out of place live, but once we’re past that the music has the warm fuzziness that makes the studio version so catchy, and I wish I was there to sing the yeah yeah yeah part with everyone else. What I don’t understand is why they speed up so many of their other songs and seem to actually slow down The Fixer. If there’s one song to speed up, it’s the Fixer.

I think the Unthought Known—RVM—Fixer run is probably the low point of the record. It’s maybe counterintuitive to expect Nothing As It Seems to really pick things up again since it’s such a slow dirge, but they really nail this one. Nothing As It Seems is almost entirely dependent on whether or not Mike can reproduce the incredible soundscapes he creates on Binaural, and he does an amazing job here. It’s just a joy to listen to him (and everyone is incredible on the bridge)

Again, WTF are handclaps doing here? Just sit on your hands and soak this one in. Some songs invite you to actively participate. Some songs ask you to appreciate from a distance. This is one of them.

In Hiding, while a middling Pearl Jam song for me, needs to show up in their sets more than it does. It’s an easy one for the band to play, easy for Eddie to sing, and there aren’t many moments in their catalog that bridge the gap between audience and band more than the chorus of In Hiding. This version was particularly good. The song feels a little more fleshed out than the studio version—it has a richness and sophistication to it (musically—although it helps that Eddie doesn’t sing the juvenile ‘I was high as hell’ lyrical variation) that isn’t often there, and it’s always fun to hear Eddie cut out and have the audience fill in without any prompting because they’ve been singing their hearts out all along.

Just Breathe is a gorgeous song, and it’s kind of amazing how intimate they can make this one sound in an arena. The chorus is maybe a little busy (it is in the studio version too) but the rest of this song aches with quiet romance. This is vastly superior to the live version they used in the video.

They’re more successful with Jeremy than they are with Rearviewmirror. Maybe it’s because Jeremy depends on an audience/band interaction that can be more easily reproduced than the strobe light effects at the end of RVM. While both songs live or die primarily on the strength of the outro, Jeremy is a more interesting journey, and from the very start the band gives the song the fullness it needs to give the listener the immersive tunnel vision—the way it starts you racing down a long hallway towards an unknown destiny—that makes the payoff at the end so intense. But like I said, Jeremy lives and dies by its outro , and the ending here is magnificent, with band and audience (who I would have liked to hear even more from since there such an important part of the song) fully committed to making it work. It has a great sing along, and the ominous final moments, the sound of the door closing on someone’s life, gives me the chills it is supposed to.

Public Image is in the right place. This is where a playful cover belongs in the set. I can see why they had to separate Arms Aloft and Public Image though. The two songs are too similar to place back to back. Still, since they already had Arms Aloft(which is the better song and better performance, although this one is fine) I would have preferred a different cover that occupies a different emotional space.

Spin the Black Circle may be the weakest song on the compilation. As with The Fixer, this one feels slower than it is, and strangely defanged. How can such an intense song sound so casual? It’s not like they can’t nail this one, since they repeatedly do a great job on songs like Blood or Go that are musically more intense and probably no harder for Eddie to sing. And unlike a song like Not For You, it’s not like the change in tone is offset by making the song a communal celebration (the point of Not For You these days, after all, is that it is for us). Maybe I’m too hard on the song. The band sounds great and Eddie actually gives the song the croaking energy it needs, but I still can’t help but feel like it’s been neutered somehow. Maybe it’s just me.

I really felt the absence of Porch and Alive on LO2L, not just because these are two of my favorite songs, but because they are my definitive set closers (sorry Black). It’s nice to see them show up. Porch is a demanding song to play live, since it needs to keep simultaneously producing and sustaining a feeling of anticipation AND release, and they do a good job here (musically especially) pulling it off. It helps that they were careful to make sure the jam in the middle lasted long enough to be interesting without starting to drag (a frequent issue I have with RVM and occasionally with Porch).

Porch, like Alive and Given To Fly, is a song that martyrs itself, and even more than the other two its success is ultimately based on the resurrection that comes at the end of the journey back. That’s why I miss Eddie’s improving at the end of Porch. Even if the substance wasn’t there, the words felt like they had a kind of supernatural wisdom to them. But we do get a sing along, which invites the (unfortunately muted) audience –and to a lesser extent the listener—to be a part of the climactic rebirth that is the song’s finale. I guess you know if a song was successful if you find yourself wishing you were there for it, and I wish I was there for this one.

I rarely listen to Alive and Porch back to back since there are so many great songs in between them, so I never really thought about how similar a role these two songs play in the live set. Following Porch with Alive is almost redundant, but since they’re both monster songs who cares? Alive is maybe the hardest song to really capture on a bootleg because the live experience, especially the ending, is so incredibly immersive and cathartic. It’s like being born again, or the closest an atheist is going to get. So while the rest of the song sounds really good it almost doesn’t matter. No matter how good the performance (and it sounds great here, animated and important) I feel like I’m killing time until the ending. The Alive solo (on the record) is my favorite moment in all of music, but since Mike plays it differently live (it’s designed to keep time as much as it is to be an awesome solo) what’s really going to matter here is how well the boot captures the experience of being there, the way the audience invests itself and, for those few minutes, looses any of sense of who it is, reborn in that perfect moment. No bootleg could reproduce that in its entirety, but they give it a game try here. I wish the audience was louder in the mix because you could really tell this was an incredible performance.

And while I personally prefer to see a show close with Indifference or Baba O’Riley (or even RITFW), Yellow Ledbetter eels right. This is how the disc needs to end. While the studio Ledbetter is a bittersweet farewell, live it’s a warm embrace, a loving hug goodbye, and they manage to capture that here, especially with the bridge, which is about as good as I’ve ever heard it sound. Yellow Ledbetter, the way they play it live, runs the risk of sounding self-indulgent when you’re not actually there, but they actually mange to successful transport you into the arena more with this one than any other song on the compilation, and more than any Ledbetter I’ve yet to hear. I actually found myself feeling sad that the disc was coming to an end, like the show was ending and I’d have to wait another year (East Coast!) to feel this way again. I guess you can’t ask for a better way to end a record.

Ultimately Live on Ten Legs can’t recapture the feel of being there, but I’m not sure that’s possible, and they come really close, closer I think than Live on Two Legs. Live on Two Legs may be a better collection of songs (in terms of both song and performance), and it captures the band at the height of their game, but Live on Two Legs always felt like a compilation to me, a group of disparate songs thrown together . Live on Ten Legs, while also a collection of random songs, felt more like a show, and one that, by the end, I really really wished I was at. By that measure, perhaps the most important one, this was a true success.

Stip has adopted LOXL.
rejoice.

did I miss some big debate on this?

NOFX released "I Heard They Suck Live" in 1995, followed by another live compilation "They've Actually Gotten Worse Live" in 2007, with no repeats

No, it is just so perfect that i am happy when its adopted by such an esteemed member of the Jamily!

I used to really like "I Heard They Suck Live". haven't listened to NOFX in ages though.

Well played Stip, but I think Fixer only sounds so slow as it's coming in directly after a rather amped up RVM. It's the best version (of both) i think i've heard anyways. Cool review, and funny but a lot of the print and online reviews are wondering where Evenflow/betterman etc are on LOXL. A lot of them even mentioning there was a previous live compilation. Shitty research. But I think we'd all feel a bit cheated if there were any repeats. They were never gonna do that let's be honest.
Arms Aloft and Public Image are coming in for enough fire, people saying 2 Pj songs would have been better suited, but you can't please everyone.

Dime, if you see other reviews (this goes for everyone, actually) please post them in this thread.

this was the review i mentioned.

http://drownedinsound.com/releases/1588 ... /414181844

Last year was a great year for Seattle’s prodigal sons, returning rejuvenated and victorious to arenas and stadiums the world over in support of the back-to-basics, warmly received Backspacer. Featuring blistering guitar workouts, mile-wide hooks and a newfound sense of vitality – the album represents their best collected work since 1994’s Vitalogy (no pun, ahem, intended). It seems that, sixteen years on Pearl Jam have set aside the much publicised resentment that followed their initial success; content to come in from the cold once more and nestle by the fire like a long-lost – and much missed – pet.

Looking back, who would have thought it? Once dismissed as one-hit chancers hanging off the coat tails of the grunge explosion in the early Nineties; now revered elder-statesmen of rock - any dispute over payment of dues has long been rendered invalid. A follow up to their 1998 live album Live on Two Legs, Live on Ten Legs marks the band’s twentieth year and is a fitting tribute to Pearl Jam's formidable live prowess. Recorded over the course of their 2003/2010 world tours and featuring live versions of eighteen of their best loved tracks (though with some notable omissions – ‘Even Flow’, ‘Daughter’, ‘Betterman’ anyone?), the listener is presented with an aural history of the band’s evolution.

Of the numerous highlights, ‘Animal’ kicks like an angry mule, driven forward by Gossard/McCready’s propulsive riffage. As the song draws to a close the crowd join in en mass with Vedder’s refrain of “I’d rather be”, clearly revelling in the moment. A frenzied rendition of long-time live favourite ‘State of Love and Trust’ gives way to compelling performances of post-grunge classics ‘I Am Mine’ and ‘Unthought Unknown’. Hendrix tribute ‘Yellow Ledbetter’ flows like a fine wine, carried aloft by outstanding contributions from McCready and Vedder, whose consistently remarkable live vocal performance remains the group’s biggest asset.

The true magic, however, can be found in moments scattered throughout the collective performances on offer here; the breakdown in ‘Rearview Mirror’, the crowd’s joyful refrain at the close of ‘In Hiding’, Mike McCready’s mournful, wailing solo on ‘Nothing As It Seems’ – each listen reveals a fresh experience (thanks in no small part to engineer Brett Eliason's excellent remastering/remixing work). Live on Ten Legs is that rare beast: a live album that truly engages the listener.

Ever since 1993’s seminal Vs., Pearl Jam have been hell bent on following their own DIY aesthetic; often at the expense of approval from both critics and record buying public. Beginning with Vitalogy and ending with Backspacer, the band seem to have exorcised those demons once and for all, comfortable in their own skin at last. A joyful rendition of PiL’s ‘Public Image Ltd.’ (knowingly followed by a breakneck version of Vitalogy's ‘Spin the Black Circle’) is clearly a nod to this career-defining principal.

Perhaps most remarkable of all is the fact that the band’s energetic performance consistently belies both its two-decade lifespan and near-ceaseless touring ethic. If any criticism is to be levelled here, it would be that the album could so easily have been a double-disc effort, but this is a minor gripe on an otherwise flawless live document of a band striving for – and arguably achieving - greatness. A resounding success then, and vindication of everything that was and continues to be great about the enduring American institution that is Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam 8 / 10

this one is...well..

http://www.antiquiet.com/reviews/2011/0 ... gs-review/

The Rushed Redundancy Of Pearl Jam’s Live On Ten Legs
By Johnny Firecloud
Monday, January 10, 2011
Kicking off what’s sure to be a thorough celebration of Pearl Jam’s twentieth anniversary year, Live On Ten Legs features 18 live tracks recorded throughout the band’s 2003-2010 world tours, remastered and newly remixed by longtime band engineer Brett Eliason. While a moderate sampling of the energy that makes a Pearl Jam show such an electric-emotion overdrive is evident within the 77 minutes, as a retrospective of the previous seven years the album falls sadly short of conveying the full scope of cathartic exhilaration an actual live Pearl Jam concert experience tends to possess.



My personal affection for the band has resulted in inner conflict about this release, because it’s an exercise in grand delusion not to call Live On Ten Legs what it is: a live compilation of material that’s been released already, in soundboard quality, for the fans that voraciously consume every piece and release Pearl Jam has to offer. After all, what selling point does the casual “Yeah, I liked the first two albums” fan, or the die hards for that matter, find in yet another recording of Jeremy, of Alive or hell, even sacred show-closer Yellow Ledbetter?

Whereas Live On Two Legs carried a beautiful untitled precursor to the fast-driving anthem MFC, two uncommon covers provide the left-hook spark, with varying effect. Opener Arms Aloft gives beautiful flight to Joe Strummer’s heartstrumming original with The Mescaleros, a match in seamless congruence with Pearl Jam’s intensely visceral soul-spark ethic. The track’s in keeping with the band’s career-long tendency to open their albums with searing rockers (save two – No Code and Riot Act), a thrilling introduction for any occasion.

The decision to include second cover Public Image is peculiar, however, in that the song is an obnoxiously faithful rendition of Johnny Rotten’s spazzy Public Image Ltd. original. Sure, it’s one of those just-plain-fun curveball moments that contributes to the band’s inimitable live experience, but it doesn’t translate to record, and the high-register monotony of the melody is a waste of frontman Eddie Vedder’s propensity for vocal nuance.

Though the album features four “new” songs – released on the band’s 2009 Backspacer album – an emphasis on early material (eight tracks are from the first three years of Pearl Jam’s 20-year existence) overrides the fresh vitality the new covers usher in. Rather than preview their excitingly progressive new song Of The Earth, the inclusion of early-90s radio overkill champion Jeremy is blatantly inexcusable, and could’ve been easily switched out for great strength in unknown sluggers such as Alone, the haunting-strobe heart power of You Are or the pinch-me-I’m-dreaming reunion with Chris Cornell in Santa Barbara 2003. The latter revived a version of Reach Down that set the clocks back two decades and obliterated expectations of the eternally-awaited Temple Of The Dog reunion.

The problem here is that the album doesn’t productively challenge the attentive fan, who’s guaranteed to have a few live-show song collages among their mix CDs far more compelling than the Live On Ten Legs compilation. We now have an inexhaustible archive of officially released Pearl Jam soundboard recordings, from which fans have made countless “best of” live mixes of their own. From this, the critical superfan can suggest a great many alternatives to the present tracklist, superior performances which don’t feel rushed and showcase one of the greatest live bands in existence.

Additionally, Pearl Jam Radio has been launched, focusing solely and specifically on showcasing the band’s live-show prowess, further establishing the general redundancy of such a retrospective compilation.

As far as remarkable Worldwide Suicide versions go, PJ’s AOL Sessions performance of the song was an incendiary, barking call to awareness. There’s nothing particularly wrong with the rendition showcased here, aside from its unremarkable & rather hurried delivery. A solid Animal follows, though we’ve heard it all before – and with far more fire.

Watch a massively cheesy disco-throwback promo for the album, narrated by Vedder (in a very strange announcer’s voice):


Matt Cameron’s machine-gunning kit intro to Got Some grabs the balls, and the performance itself is superb, a highlight on the record. However, Vedder simply sounds breathless through several of the songs, particularly State Of Love And Trust, half-stepping the signature intonation and intensity that fans were originally drawn to like moths to a volcanic eruption. Alternately, his pacing on the rushed I Am Mine detracts from the song’s post-9/11 reaffirmation of self, though not quite enough to drown out the underlying message.

It’s common for bands to up the BPMs in live performance, but while Cameron’s kit-slugging tendencies and propensity for accelerating the rhythm may lend the band’s sound a punkier punch that Vedder so shamelessly adores, it ultimately sacrifices space within the songs that hold great potential for deeper color and undertones throughout the music. Half the time, it seems as if the rest of the band is just trying to keep up. Having witnessed the rotation of drummers over the years, the comparison ultimately doesn’t lean in Cameron’s favor, songwriting contributions nonwithstanding.

The typically creeping opening to soul-blooming Unthought Known instead sets in at a near-gallop, the audience setting a quick metronomic clap pace to Vedder’s hastened strumming. The song is an album highlight both here and on Backspacer, a heart-soaring tune of encouragement to realize one’s own potential to rise above self-inflicted shackles, a common lyrical design in the Pearl Jam universe.

Rearviewmirror suffers from the same rushed pacing, though the late-game breakdown is a glorious little jam despite McCready’s horribly truncated solo (two seconds long at the four minute mark). By now the speeding offense has become flagrant; Nothing As It Seems is criminally rushed, though still a gripping rendition that provides a perspective of evolution between the band’s earlier tracks and their more recent work. After a snarling flex of Spin The Black Circle, the slow-strut boil of Vedder’s intro to Porch serves an enthralling redesign of the classic Ten track, exploding into full gallop three beats after the final “would you hit me?” McCready gets his due here, unleashing a furiously torrential mid-song solo that would do his hero (Hendrix) proud.

Live-staple show capper Yellow Ledbetter still retains its slow dance happy-tears closure for anyone who’s stuck around through the highs and lows of the live compilation that is Live On Ten Legs. It’s here that unconditional defenders and reluctant cynics lay down their arms and allow themselves feel the spine chills of a five-and-a-half minute wave goodbye that every fan knows by soul, despite ever-shifting lyrics. There’s no accurate text portrayal of the sensation of being on the floor of the arena, house lights on, clapping along as Ed’s meandering, reluctant goodbye gives way to Stone’s soft acoustic breakdown strum and, finally, once more, McCready’s gorgeous finishing solo lead.

Moments of true musical magic interwoven with missed opportunity and a very real need to let the songs breathe leave a sense of uneven quality to Live On Ten Legs, though ultimately any live compilation of the band’s work, even pulled at random, is a testament to the greatness of the Gossard, Ament, McCready, Vedder, Cameron and (sometimes) Gaspar collective.

Live On Ten Legs will be available internationally from Island Records in digital, CD and deluxe versions. The deluxe version will include a CD, double LP package, four mini-poster reprints, five live photos and a tour laminate (because what ultimate fanboy collection is complete without a fake tour laminate?)

http://consequenceofsound.net/2011/01/1 ... -ten-legs/

Pearl Jam, who are easily among the most grizzled bands to have braved the grunge and post-grunge years, spent a good chunk of 2010 touring on the back of their ninth LP, Backspacer. The quintet decided to ring in their 21st year together as a band with their seventh official live release. Rather than just playing like an exercise in longevity, though, Live on Ten Legs makes for a good overview of the band’s venerable career. Spanning 18 tracks, Live on Ten Legs compiles the best of the band’s live performances from 2003′s Riot Act Tour to the Backspacer Tour that Pearl Jam just wrapped up in late 2010. It’s curious to hear how seamlessly the live tracks segue from one into the next, considering that some were recorded almost seven years apart.

The songs themselves are varied, with eight of their nine albums being represented, along with a handful of B-sides and covers. An energetic cover of “Arms Aloft” by Joe Strummer’s Mescaleros kicks things off on a high note before a passable take of “World Wide Suicide” off of Pearl Jam’s 2006 self-titled LP.

Things get pretty awesome from there as Eddie Vedder and Co. string together three fan favorites: “Animal”, “Got Some”, and “State of Love and Trust”. Despite being sandwiched in between two of their finest tracks, Backspacer‘s “Got Some” hardly sounds out of place. “Animal”, on the other hand, is certainly one of the best cuts on Live on Ten Legs. The rhythm section of Matt Cameron and Jeff Ament chug along as mightily as ever, while Vedder occasionally pauses to allow the fervent fans shout the chorus.

Only three songs off of Pearl Jam’s diamond-certified Ten appear on the live LP, and even then, they’re saved for the tail end of the album. But when the instantly recognizable bassline and guitar harmonics of “Jeremy” finally ring out, the crowd erupts. After indulging themselves with a rowdy cover of PiL’s “Public Image”, the band rip through classics “Spin the Black Circle”, “Porch”, and “Alive” with surprising fervor. Guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard are clearly just as on top of their game as they were two decades ago as they lay down searing riff after searing riff. And when things finally draw to an end, it’s with a stirring five-and-a-half minute rendition of fan favorite “Yellow Ledbetter”.

Live on Ten Legs steers clear of greatest-hits territory with good reason. If Pearl Jam has made anything clear, it’s that they have no intention of slowing down anytime. While many of their fellow grunge-mates shuffle members, plot reunion/nostalgia tours, and generally struggle to remain relevant, Pearl Jam has consistently stuck around, churning out new material around every three or four years.

Due to the almost total lack of their big singles, this LP won’t win Pearl Jam too many new fans. Nonetheless, many of the songs stand up very well to their studio-recorded counterparts, and there’s enough here to please both casual and hardcore devotees of the alt-rock gods. Equal parts wistful throwback and raucous romp, Live on Ten Legs is a fun and lively ride through Pearl Jam’s catalog.

"Due to the almost total lack of their big singles, this LP won’t win Pearl Jam too many new fans. Nonetheless, many of the songs stand up very well to their studio-recorded counterparts, and there’s enough here to please both casual and hardcore devotees of the alt-rock gods. Equal parts wistful throwback and raucous romp, Live on Ten Legs is a fun and lively ride through Pearl Jam’s catalog."

so there are no big singles (alive and jeremy!! wtf??) and yet it's a wistful throwback?? who employs these people???

Great review Stip. I still haven't heard all of this, looking forward to picking it up on Monday.

I thought I was getting the exclusive on this, stip.

This was about the most boring live album I've ever heard. Back to Live on Two Legs for me.

It's a damn lot better than any of your albums, bitch!

the Dropkick Murphys have released 2 live albums, the second one was even advertised as being only songs not on the first live album

Stip...nice work, did you receive an adavanced copy or did you listen to the songs off each bootleg?

Anyway, I know you are a fan of WWS (as am I) and I have to tout the AOL Sessions version as my favorite "live" WWS version.

The record leaked a few days ago, Coach. It's...out there.

yup--just a leak