How Could Pearl Jam Be Better Live

surferdude

I don't want to get flamed for this but I think there are things that Pearl Jam could do better in concert without losing their identity.

1. Backing vocals - they are horribly inconsistent.

2. Take ownership of your biggest songs - that Alive is not a crowd participation highpoint every night is a crime. They have enough great slower songs to showcase on a rotating basis; Black, Present Tense, Immortality, All or None. Zeppelin managed to keep fresh doing Whole Lotta Love, Black Dog, Stairway every night.

3. Pacing - Sometimes they suffer from mid-tempoitis. I know they constantly change their set list but some set lists have nothing they are building towards.

What do you think?

Smitre

surferdude wrote:

I don't want to get flamed for this but I think there are things that Pearl Jam could do better in concert without losing their identity.

1. Backing vocals - they are horribly inconsistent.

Agree

2. Take ownership of your biggest songs - that Alive is not a crowd participation highpoint every night is a crime. They have enough great slower songs to showcase on a rotating basis; Black, Present Tense, Immortality, All or None. Zeppelin managed to keep fresh doing Whole Lotta Love, Black Dog, Stairway every night.

Disagree. Keep it fresh and different every night.

3. Pacing - Sometimes they suffer from mid-tempoitis. I know they constantly change their set list but some set lists have nothing they are building towards.

Mostly Disagree. Some shows do have their awkward moments but that is also part of the charm with always changing setlists. Love to be surprised and I am sure it helps them stay fresh also.

surferdude

On Point 2. "Disagree. Keep it fresh and different every night." They have some songs that basically do not leave their set list on a night to night basis. Play Alive early in the set instead of Cordoroy, see how the fans react. Sometimes I think that Pearl Jam is afraid to let an audience get too worked up and feeling like things are out of control.

On Point 3. I think they can juggle their set list every night with a purpose in mind. A great concert should have emtional highlights that the band builds towards. Some shows lack this focus, like a movie with great actors and a bad director.

Pacomc79

don't include organ in every song.

2 organ chords on Animal takes away from the sound not adding to it. It's like a bad emo band. Every emo band it seems has a keyboard player whether or not he has a place. Generally its some guy that is along for the ride that plays 2 or 3 chords and makes wierd noises off of his synth when he gets the feeling too.


Boom is awesome, he sounds great on slower and blusey songs where the B3 not only fits but really adds to the music, but they should allow him to take breaks. There's no place for the B3 in Animal. Let the Guitars handle that one.

#2 I love Mike, everyone here knows that, but encourage more back and forth between him and Stone. Stone is completely different and his riffs are awesome, I want to hear more. I never liked DTE much until last tour when Stone went off in the solos. Mike is bright clear brilliant and fantastic, Stones sound is dark fat mysterious and fucking cool. Bounce it back and forth. Geez I'd love to hear them do TOD's Reach Down and tear it up.

Let Ed play acoustic more often. That Martin is fantastic, for a song that calls for acoustic, let Ed do it. Stones Taylor is on the bright side for that matter so is that damn Hamer Duotone, leave them in the case. Play the frets off that Trussart Rusty Tele the "Charlie Brown" strat and the LP's also keep the Savage Blitz 50 in the sonic loop.

Executed Anyhow

Just a few minor things:

Get Matt's drums to sound better. You can see he's kicking ass on the kit, but you can't really hear it.

Get Stone to wake the fuck up, get that old time energy back in him. And get his guitar tone back in shape.

Hmm...no big gripes, really. They kick a lot of ass live.

Oh yeah...retire Yellow Ledbetter for a while. And cut back on the covers.

pjfan020

i love the sound that they have. Mike and Stone are great guitarist, but, i think that a little more distortion would make it sound more badass. I'm not sayin they should turn their amps up to eleven or anything, but it might add a little more. I agree w/ the keyboard comment though. Not every song calls for organ. Lastly, eddie's guitar seems a little out of tune when he plays sometimes, if he fixed that up, it would sound a little better. A Matt Cameron drum solo wouldn't be to shabby here and there. He doesn't have to go crazy like Bonham, but i think that him adding a little more double bass or something would kick their sound up a notch. Just some suggestion, no actual complaints with their live performance though.

TheLostSoul

less sleater kinney?

Bu$hleague

TheLostSoul wrote:

less sleater kinney?

Hey, sleater kinney rules!


And I don't think PJ could do much to improve their already stellar live performance except for yes.. #3; like the show i went to they came out and ROCKED the place: go, animal, save you, once, evenflow, do the evolution, ect.. but chilled out with a couple songs like present tense and then took a 15 minute break.. came out did an acoustic set... then another break.. came back with a couple more slow songs (so it was over an hour of slow paced action right after being rocked to the core) until we finally got jolted back into it with a "war; what is it good for?" concert participation at the end of Daughter and finished off strong.

Not too much of a complaint tho.. overall great show, i'll not soon forget. It should also be noted I was sick this night too.

goto_l

Tell Matt to slow down, I get frustrated with all the old songs practically in double time. You lose the groove at that pace. Yes you get more songs when you shorten them by a minute(see Corduroy) with sheer pace, but you get a flat song. Maybe Matt played so many slow grinding songs with Soundgarden, that he just can't help but to fly through things??? Also as a guitarist & lover of the lead, it's hard to believe I'm saying this, but Mike needs to settle down a bit. Play more structure rather than leads for the sake of leads.

FinsburyParkCarrots

If the band plays covers this year, I'd like to hear a different selection.

armanHammer

What I would *really* like to see live is the album version of Yellow Ledbetter. It sounds alright when they play it live, but it's nothing compared to the original version.

Bu$hleague

Well the original version of Yellow Ledbetter doesnt have any actual words... It's Ed mumbling incoherent and oft undecipherable lyrics; while live.. the meaning and words tends to change with every time they play it; which I totally dig.

armanHammer

Bu$hleague wrote:

Well the original version of Yellow Ledbetter doesnt have any actual words... It's Ed mumbling incoherent and oft undecipherable lyrics; while live.. the meaning and words tends to change with every time they play it; which I totally dig.

It does have words, they're just hard to understand, but I know them. I kinda like when they change the words, but not really. They just can't reproduce that great eerie feel of the album version.

Bu$hleague

You know them? Not even Mike knows the words.

But please enlighten me if you will.
I do agree they lose the eerieness of the song during live performances; if they played it acoustically (ie: MTV Unplugged) i think they'd get that back... not that i find it necessary.

armanHammer

All from memory:

Unsealed
On a porch, a letter sat
Then you said, "I wanna leave it again"
Once I saw him
On a beach of weathered sand
And on the sand, I wanna leave it again
Yeah
On a weekend
I wanna wish it all away
And I call out I say that I want what I said and I call out again
And the reason
Oughta leave her calm I know
I said, "I didn't know whether I was the boxer or the bag"
Ah yeah aha can't you seem them?
Out on the porch, yeah
But they don't wave
I see them
Round the front way, yeah
And I know and I know
I don't wanna stay
Make me cry (Mike guitar solo)
Oooh I see, I don't know uh something else
I wanna drum it all away
I said "I didn't, I didn't know whether I was the boxer or the bag"
Ah yeah aha ha can't you see them
Out on the porch, yeah
But they don't wave
I see them
Round the front way, yeah
And I know and I know
I don't wanna stay-ee-aa-y at all
I don't wanna stay-ay-ay-ay-ay
I don't wanna stay-eeeaayeah
I don't wanna stay
I... don't wanna... yeah

(Mike guitar outro)

casper leblanc

Pacomc79 wrote:

2 organ chords on Animal takes away from the sound not adding to it.

wtf? Organs on Animal? They actually did that? Yikes!

sustainedia

Bu$hleague wrote:

It should also be noted I was sick this night too.

Why should that be noted? Not that I mind noting it, but why?

Lukin_oz

Bu$hleague wrote:

You know them? Not even Mike knows the words.

But please enlighten me if you will.
I do agree they lose the eerieness of the song during live performances; if they played it acoustically (ie: MTV Unplugged) i think they'd get that back... not that i find it necessary.

Mikes guitar has its own words to yellow ledbetter... which in my opinion makes over 2/3's of the magic of the song.

Beav

I think their live sound is kind of muddy. I agree some songs need more distortion, like animal or go. It almost seems like Ed hates distortion because I never hear it on his guitar. Matts kit could stand to sound a little brighter also. I like how they keep the set list fresh but that means there's a chance that you'll be at a show where they play a setlist of your less favorite songs. That's what happened to me at Columbus '03. Still I was at a PJ show so what's there to complain about!

Pearl Jam and toast

the only gripe i have with backing vocals is they dont use them much. Low light, occasionally god's dice (when they actually play it), rear view mirror, all the others,.. sound beautiful.

i think we all want an organ cut back.. but who knows if boom is even touring this year?

i actually want to hear much less Alive and jeremy and much more rare things like Present Tense and NAIS, etc.. they seem to be so far evolved from the older hits.

Manstis1604

Mike needs a little more gain in his sound, when he plays the Les Paul it's way too clean sounding, and the Strat is really clangy and inconsistent.