Pearl Jam - Live: 12-06-2000 Landgraaf, Holland (2000)

One of the shorter sets on the European tour, the Pink Pop festival isn't short on great material. Maybe due to the brevity of their time slot, Pearl Jam chose to give the fans a treat and dust off four tracks from Ten: "Even Flow," "Once," "Black," and "Jeremy," a tune that only rarely shows up on the European tour. The show really begins on a high note with "Corduroy," kicking things off with a jolt on a tour in which quieter, slower tunes usually lead things off. In fact, the first four songs are all pretty high-energy until vocalist Eddie Vedder paints a little more somber picture with the introduction of "Rival" and "Jeremy." He describes the rarely played tunes as "a couple of songs about Americans killing each other" after he sarcastically notes that "we Americans have really futuristic ways of handling our population problem we give each other guns and kill one another." On a lighter note, the set ends with a spectacular, full-tilt version of the rock & roll nugget "Leaving Here."
This is indicated by the fact that there is only one encore in this show, instead of the usual two. So the short set is not a good reason to criticize this bootleg. Unfortunately there are several other reasons for criticism. It is plainly obvious that the band was not taking this gig very seriously. This is a disservice to the paying fans that went to the event, and it also makes for one very unimpressive bootleg. The carelessness of the band is evident early in the show, as the usually powerful "Animal" and "Hail Hail" fail to ignite. The attempts at the extended solos to end "Jeremy" and "Habit" are complete failures as the band breaks down into uncoordinated noodling. There are few strong tracks, like "Light Years," "Brain of J," and "Rearviewmirror," but these fail to save this sloppy show. The show ends very inconclusively with a lazy "Leaving Here," which is a cool song but not an effective closer. I suspect that the band decided to wrap it up early and split, and didn't think it was necessary to provide a true finale. The brevity of the performance can't be criticized too much, but this is still a pretty unsatisfactory bootleg.

Track listing

01.  Corduroy  - 5:35
02.  Breakerfall  - 2:51
03.  Animal  - 2:35
04.  Hail Hail  - 4:51
05.  Rival  - 3:33
06.  Jeremy  - 5:41
07.  Nothing as It Seems  - 6:03
08.  Mfc  - 2:30
09.  Habit  - 4:29
10.  Light Years  - 4:55
11.  Lukin  - 1:09
12.  Even Flow  - 5:19
13.  Brain of J  - 3:01
14.  Insignificance  - 4:28
15.  Betterman  - 4:10
16.  Rearviewmirror  - 6:44
17.  Once  - 4:12
18.  Fuckin Up  - 9:13
19.  Black  - 6:44
20 . Leaving Here  - 3:20

Credits
Design Concept – J.A.
Design, Layout – Brad Klausen
Engineer [Assistant] – John Burton
Recorded By, Mixed By – Brett Eliason

Notes
Recorded live 06/12/2000 at the Pinkpop Festival in Landgraaf, Netherlands.
Genre:  Grunge, Rock
Length:  1:31:23
Label:  Epic Records

© 2000