MSG Night 2 1998 - The Breath Show - Live On 4 Legs

Sobelberg8

We’re up to part 2 of our 10 part series this year that’ll cover every MSG show in the band’s history. The next show we’re covering is the legendary night 2 show of 98 where they played Breath for the first time since 94. If you remember the campaign that went on during the time to get them to try and play the song or any other stories, moments, memories from that night please let us know. Would love to hear your thoughts on the show outside of the rare Breath appearance. Many people consider this a top 10 show of all-time and I want to know from the people who witnessed it what made it that legendary outside of just Breath? Let us know what you think below, thanks!

cp3iverson

I rank it as their greatest show

mcgruff10

I was first row between stone and ed, definitely my favorite show out of the 58 I have seen.

mookieblalock

cp3iverson said:

I rank it as their greatest show

KN219077

They need to release this as a vault show

rummy

KN219077 said:

They need to release this as a vault show

Indeed. This (along with Red Rocks '95 and Randall's Island '96) is widely considered to be one of their greatest shows ever. Please get it (these) out to fans while their is still time.  

PB11041

In the No Code/Yield era, definitely their best show.  Arguably their best show in the first 8 years of touring.  It holds up incredibly well with the vastness wealth of excellent performances in the second decade of the bands career.  Definitely should be a Vault release. 

As much as I want night 1 of Randall's Island out as a Vault, I would want this one first.  

Loujoe

Was behind stage for this show. Early stages of my pj fan years. Really had no idea what I was experiencing. I remember ev was wearing green pants and when stone did mankind I thought why is that guy singing. Sure I had a great time but if I could only go back and see it now it would be a whole different experience.

I think there was a Slayer show that let out about the same time pj did...one slayer fan mumbled as he walked past, "pearl jam pus.ies."

josevolution

Yeah def one of the good ones , i hold Randall’s island II above this show though still those two nights in 98 were off the charts ..

Sobelberg8

cp3iverson said:

I rank it as their greatest show

Why though? For someone who wasn’t there and can only listen to it on a boot, why do people (and please don’t say Breath because one song doesn’t make a show) hold this show with such high regard?

mookieblalock

Sobelberg8 said:

cp3iverson said:

I rank it as their greatest show

Why though? For someone who wasn’t there and can only listen to it on a boot, why do people (and please don’t say Breath because one song doesn’t make a show) hold this show with such high regard?

This is silly. He doesn’t need to provide tangible reasons to appease you. I was at this show and could write 10,000 words that wouldn’t do it justice. You needed to be there to experience it. Sorry.

Sobelberg8

mookieblalock 

This is silly. He doesn’t need to provide tangible reasons to appease you. I was at this show and could write 10,000 words that wouldn’t do it justice. You needed to be there to experience it. Sorry.

You have one thing right and one thing wrong. You are 100% correct that the experience cannot be replicated, so in turn our decision to cover it is a difficult one because in 2019, this looks like a pretty decent set with nothing completely out of the norm. But listening back to it twice now on low quality audio, it is tough to put myself in the shoes of someone there. That’s been the most challenging process about doing this podcast is that it tends to be more of a discussion about a bootleg rather than a live show. Which is fine, but that’s why I ask for first hand accounts from people’s experiences.

I’m not looking for anyone to appease me. This isn’t about me. This is about anyone who loves this band and has incredible memories from seeing them live that they wish to relive and I just want to help them relive those memories. So when someone says “this is the best show I’ve ever been to” or “their greatest show”, we owe it to people to prove or disprove that theory. Do words always do it justice? No. Definitely not. I fully understand that. But painting a picture with some context can help the memories stay alive and in the end that’s all I’m trying to do.

rummy

Sobelberg8 said:

mookieblalock 

This is silly. He doesn’t need to provide tangible reasons to appease you. I was at this show and could write 10,000 words that wouldn’t do it justice. You needed to be there to experience it. Sorry.

You have one thing right and one thing wrong. You are 100% correct that the experience cannot be replicated, so in turn our decision to cover it is a difficult one because in 2019, this looks like a pretty decent set with nothing completely out of the norm. But listening back to it twice now on low quality audio, it is tough to put myself in the shoes of someone there. That’s been the most challenging process about doing this podcast is that it tends to be more of a discussion about a bootleg rather than a live show. Which is fine, but that’s why I ask for first hand accounts from people’s experiences.

I’m not looking for anyone to appease me. This isn’t about me. This is about anyone who loves this band and has incredible memories from seeing them live that they wish to relive and I just want to help them relive those memories. So when someone says “this is the best show I’ve ever been to” or “their greatest show”, we owe it to people to prove or disprove that theory. Do words always do it justice? No. Definitely not. I fully understand that. But painting a picture with some context can help the memories stay alive and in the end that’s all I’m trying to do.

Hate to take sides but I gotta agree with you here. Your podcast would be pretty lame without the worded details you get each week. 

Sobelberg8

rummy

Hate to take sides but I gotta agree with you here. Your podcast would be pretty lame without the worded details you get each week. 

There are times where we don’t get the details, and that’s okay. We did Barcelona 96 recently and didn’t talk to a soul that attended, but we worked around it because we could. There were others things to talk about. But when multiple people have expressed that this MSG show is the greatest show of all-time, I don’t think it’s unfair to dig into the details as to why. It would be doing everyone a disservice if I didn’t.

If an American historian told Walter Kronkite that Abraham Lincoln was the most important  President of all-time, Walter Kronkite was gonna get an answer as to why. I’m not Walter Kronkite (though I have a journalism background) but I subscribe to that theory.

RS65573

For me, this was an amazing show because it showed that the band was listening. We were so loud, they finally couldn't ignore us. It felt amazing.

rummy

RS65573 said:

For me, this was an amazing show because it showed that the band was listening. We were so loud, they finally couldn't ignore us. It felt amazing.

Interesting point since we know they listen to the fans today (based upon them granting so many forum requests). 

PB11041

mookieblalock said:

Sobelberg8 said:

cp3iverson said:

I rank it as their greatest show

Why though? For someone who wasn’t there and can only listen to it on a boot, why do people (and please don’t say Breath because one song doesn’t make a show) hold this show with such high regard?

This is silly. He doesn’t need to provide tangible reasons to appease you. I was at this show and could write 10,000 words that wouldn’t do it justice. You needed to be there to experience it. Sorry.

No reason to be so harsh, no one was asking to be appeased they are looking for feedback.  

The notion of "you had to be there" is not really a great premise for why something was/is considered so strong.  I could say you had to be there for the night before, 9.10, and that would be a bold face lie because I was at both nights and night 1 was by Pearl Jam standards, a really really sub-par concert experience for a variety of reasons.

I've had people argue with me how awesome it was to hear Satan's Bed at State College in 2003, and I could only conclude they were on acid or were passed out drunk during that part of the show because that song, it was a train-wreck.  

The MSG 9.11 show arguably does not include a single song played that was the "best of version" they ever performed of a particular song BUT, that is not what made this show so great.  It was more the combination of songs was played so well.  The songs were generally restrained a bit more back during this tour, it was about tempo and precision over risk and walking the tightrope live, because Matt Cameron as great a drummer as he is, was learning their live approach and catalog on the fly. 

They played with a fierce passion this night, why I can't exactly say.  Maybe it was because it was a Friday, I don't know quite what to say but an more than a few stunning PJ shows seem to happen to fall on Fridays.  Maybe it was the tour winding down.  Maybe it was need to erase the less than good feel from the night prior.   It was likely a mix of most of those things.   The songs were sharp, the flow was well paced and there was little to no wasted time.  Stone and Mike were both playing pretty passionately.

This was definitely the best show of the Yield tour.  It could be argued as their best from 1992 through 1998, personally radio broadcast or not, I might give that to Atlanta 4.3.94 the intensity of that show had a similar vibe, the songs were well played and the encore for that show push it all up a notch.  

I still go back and listen to the audience of MSG 2 98, even with the bevy of official boots available, and still will until such time as they release it as a Vault.    The whole main set is particularly strong, State, Off He Goes and Mankind always caught my ears a bit in the 1st encore and Indifference with Harper and Alive to close with the lighting rig tease and Mike wailing away, it was a good send off.  

Sobelberg8

We did our best to relive this:

Smarter_Than_U

Why was it a great show imo?
- it was the first time I ever saw Eddie Vedder really having a lot of fun being a rock star. All the awkward reluctance seemed to melt away that night. (Granted I didn’t get to see them in 91-92). He fricking moonwalked and climbed a mic cord up the lighting rig! Plus that voice. It was just so perfect still.
- breath campaign and they threw in State of love and trust
- Ben Harper was phenomenal from what I remember 
- the crowd was really great
- they opened with Release

i agree with others though, for me Randall’s 2 is my favorite of all time.

Rydogger19

This was the first Pearl Jam show I ever saw and is still the #1 PJ show I've ever seen. I'll never forget the incredible energy I witnessed that night. Maybe it was the experience of being my first PJ show. Maybe it was because I had upper level seats and ended up 20 rows back on the floor with some very generous fan club members I met on the train ride down. Maybe it was being in the greatest indoor arena in the US for the first time. Maybe it's because I've never felt the floor shake at a concert before. When I look back at the set list, I'm not impressed. I've seen so many amazing PJ shows throughout the years, but there was something special about this night that has never been matched in my opinion. I still remember Eddie throwing the mic cable over the speakers about 50 feet above him and using it like a rope to climb to the top and thinking, oh my god, he's going to fall and kill himself! But of course he somehow slid down to safety and kept rocking Alive during the encore. Long live MSG 98 N2!