Pearl Jam

May 31, 2006
The Avalon: New York, NY

with

April 15, 2006
NBC Studios: New York, NY

VH1 Storytellers
and
Saturday Night Live


05/31 Source: [MHD - HDTV Transport Stream (1080i MPEG2, DD 5.1) > DGIndex >
(Broadcast)   AVISynth > CCE > 16x9 DVD] > XiliSoft DVD Audio Ripper 4 > WAV >
              FLAC Frontend (level 8) > FLAC

05/31 Source: [Main: MHD - HDTV Transport Stream (1080i MPEG2, DD 5.1) >
(Edited)      DGIndex > AVISynth > CCE > 16x9 DVD Insignificance: Windows Media
              Webcast > WM Recorder 10.2 > Vegas 6 > CCE > DVD] > XiliSoft DVd
              Audio Ripper 4 > WAV > Nero Wave Editor > Media Join >
              FLAC Frontend (level 8) > FLAC

04/15 Source: [Digital Cable > Motorola DCT6200 HDTV STB > PC via Firewire >
              CapDVHS > TS files > HDTVtoMPEG2 (editing) > mpeg-vcr (convert to
              Program Stream) > TMPGEenc Plus 2.5 (demux/render/multiplex) >
              Ulead DVD Moviefactory 5 > DVD] > XiliSoft DVD Audio Ripper 4 >
              WAV > FLAC Frontend (level 8) > FLAC


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***     DO NOT ENCODE TO MP3     ***
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Disc 1:
VH1 "Storytellers" - broadcast version
01 - Introduction                                   - 01:52
02 - Betterman                                      - 06:34
03 - Worldwide Suicide                              - 05:05
04 - Gone                                           - 05:12
05 - Alive                                          - 09:33
06 - Here's To The State Of Mississippi             - 10:07
07 - Life Wasted                                    - 05:06
Total:  43:31

Disc 2:
VH1 "Storytellers" - edited version
01 - Introduction                                   - 01:31
02 - Betterman                                      - 04:14
03 - Storytelling: Betterman & Worldwide Suicide    - 02:19
04 - Worldwide Suicide                              - 03:30
05 - Storytelling: Gone                             - 01:58
06 - Gone                                           - 04:14
07 - Insignificance                                 - 04:29
08 - Storytelling: Alive                            - 03:03
09 - Alive                                          - 05:42
10 - Storytelling: More Alive                       - 00:26
11 - Storytelling: Here's To The State Of
                                        Mississippi - 01:20
12 - Here's To The State Of Mississippi             - 06:24
13 - Question & Answer: Ideology                    - 02:00
14 - Question & Answer: C-L-I-M-E-D                 - 00:22
15 - Storytelling: Life Wasted                      - 00:38
16 - Life Wasted                                    - 04:27

April 15, 2006
17 - World Wide Suicide                             - 03:39
18 - Severed Hand                                   - 03:57

Total:  54:21


Notes:
 Edited version - All Storytellers promos removed. Insignificance added.
                  Question and answer placed in proper order.
Show Notes (thanks to 2FT):
05/31: This performance is a taping of the VH1 TV series "Storytellers". The show is announced a week prior and 250 fan club members are selected randomly to attend. The venue was formerly the Limelight, where PJ played on April 12, 1992. Ed asked the crowd for a show of hands of those who were at the 1992 show and one (lucky) fan raised his hand. Fans outside the venue are organized into three lines. The first two lines are let into the venue first, with the fans who showed up earliest being allowed to go right to the front of the stage. The floor is general admission, with a few fans taken to the side of the stage as well. The third line of fans are brought to the balconies lining the walls to the right and left of the stage. Ed's tech Ricky brings out and removes a music stand with Ed's pre-written notes prior to each song. Ed mentions that the theme of the songs being played revolve around the "truth" and how the government has misinformed the public, also reminding fans of the saying "don't let the truth get in the way of a good story".
"Better Man" is played with a "new" intro, with Boom starting the song on keyboards and Ed coming in on vocals, much like the studio version. Ed prefaces "Gone" mentioning that it's "a car song" and how PJ has a lot of car songs, but that Bruce Springsteen is still the king of writing car songs. The venue is very hot, and a small fan is put in front of Ed. It starts blowing his hair as he reads, distracting him, and he asks that it be turned off because he's "not Steven Tyler".
"Sleight of Hand" is a nice surprise, introduced as "another car song". Ed retells the story of "Alive" saying "it's a song about someone I know very well (laughs) ... OK, it's about me" and goes on to say how the chorus is sung by fans with exuberance and it has trancended from being a song about a curse, to being an uplifting song. He concludes with "you changed the meaning of the song, you lifted the curse" which gets a great response from the fans.
The band exits during "Alive" and Ed comes out solo. Ed mentions his collaboration with Tim Robbins in 2004 during the Vote for Change tour and plays "Here's to the State of Mississippi" originally written by Phil Ochs. At one point Ed is in-between verses and pauses but keeps strumming a G-chord, addressing the crowd wondering if - being a protest song - whether Phil Ochs picked the G-chord intentionally because the left hand mimics the sign of giving someone the middle-finger.
Chairs are set up in the middle of the stage for a fan Q&A session. Before the event, fans wrote their name, location and a question on blue cards that were collected while waiting on line. Fans were told that if picked, they would go to areas of the venue where there were microphones to ask their question, but the band instead read the questions and answered them themselves. The band returned one more time to perform "Life Wasted".
04/15:This is the band's third appearance on Saturday Night Live, the others being 1992 and 1994. Both songs are for the upcoming album Pearl Jam, with "Severed Hand" making its premiere ("World Wide Suicide" was released as a studio single and a live download from an AOL session).