Have no fear fellow Epinionaters. Your King of Rock is back from an extended hiatus. Honestly, I had lost a lot of passion for this site over the last few months. But now I think I'm ready to contribute regularly again. Oops, did I say that LAST time I wrote an Epinion? (grin)

There are times when you're in a record store and you find the most incredible item for so cheap that you almost want to pinch yourself and wake up. This has now happened twice to me in the last six months. The first was when browsing through the used CD section, I came across a used copy in mint condition of Ice T's Body Count cd, complete with Cop Killer track, for $6.99. No, I kid you not. When I got to the register, the kid looked at it in disbelief. I can't blame him.

The second find came two weeks ago. Once again I was browing in the used CD section, when I decided to hit the Pearl Jam section. Those of you who know me know I own most of what I feel is necessary to own. However, what was staring me in the face was something I never, ever, EVER expected to see in a used CD store, at least not without it being too much money for me to afford. I saw the title, in bright white letters on red background: PEARL JAM:LIVE IN ATLANTA. I literally started shaking as I picked it up and saw the price: $13.99!!!! I opened it up and sure enough, all three CDs were enclosed in the digipak. Now, one has to understand. This set normally goes for $40 and up on Ebay. Granted, the digipak that housed all 3 CDs had some wear, but I didn't care, I had been looking for this set for 7 years, ever since I so stupidly passed up buying it for $30 (3 singles, $10 each) at that time.

So What's the Big Deal?

Those of you who aren't huge Pearl Jam fans probably can't see why I would get so excited over this, besides the collectible fact of it. So here's a rundown.
On Easter Sunday of 1994, Pearl Jam broadcast their concert from the Fox Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia over the airwaves for any radio station to pick up. I remember sitting in my room that night, my tape player recording ever note of the night. It was the first time I had ever heard Better Man, and that song immediately became my favorite song. I also heard Whipping and Satan's Bed and the band's cover of Sonic Reducer, all in one night, together with all my favorites from the band's first two albums. It was incredible to say the least. It is to this day considered one of the band's best shows ever.

In late 1994, before the band were releasing singles commercially in the US (read:imports were the only way to get them), Epic released the Atlanta concert over 3 CD singles. Not included were the unreleased songs named above, but other than that, the concert was complete. The first disc was the single for the song Dissident, as well as housing the first 6 live songs. This came in a large digipak case that had room for discs 2 and 3, which completed the concert.

I saw this in a record store in 1994 and passed it up, not knowing what I was doing. Once I got online in 1998, I realized exactly the error of my ways, and set about trying to find it again. Ebay proved to be too expensive (up to $100 at one point), and trading for it was just about impossible without giving up something else you worked hard to find in PJ memorabilia. The reason these sets are rare is because discs two and three are near impossible to find. Disc one was re-released to US consumers (as a regular Dissident single with the 6 live tracks) but two and three were never made available in the United States.

Dissident...the album cut

Dissident has long been one of my all time favorite songs by what is without a doubt my all time favorite band. The bluesy guitar intro is fabulous, and the simple chording on the verses are played with a restraint not seen with any of the bands that seem to be large in popularity today. Lead singer Eddie Vedder's voice is mournful almost, and yet, on the chorus, that same voice is so powerful, so reassuring that it's no wonder this song became a big rock radio hit. The guitar interplay on the bridge is fabulous, and drummer Dave Abbrusseze's work is second to none as well.

The Atlanta Concert

After the album cut, the Atlanta concert immediately begins with the inspirational Release a longtime favorite of mine, a song that has brought this writer to tears both at home and at concerts. This version is longer than any of the shortened versions found on the 2000 bootleg tour series (with a couple of exceptions where they didn't leave out the last verse), and the sound quality and mixing job, for the most part, is better than those were as a whole (Europe was too low altogether, drums were too high on North America 1, and the guitars were too high and Eddie too low on North America 2).

Fans of the band's first two albums will love this set, because that's all there is is the angst-ridden songs of those two albums, Ten and Vs.. Those songs come off as passionate and desperate here, and Kurt Cobain's disappearance is obviously playing heavily on Vedder's mind (it was well known in the Seattle community Kurt was missing well before the rest of the world knew anything about it, and Vedder worried deeply about Cobain, even mentioning it after the show as he spun records on the radio). As I said before, the 3 or 4 unreleased at the time songs are not on here, but with the exception of a rousing Better Man, I don't consider those essential.

The sing-along on Jeremy on the "ooo ooo ooo" part is rousing and uniting at the same time. Meanwhile, songs like Deep and Why Go get hardly a reaction out of the crowd, not particularly surprising since both of those songs are among the weakest on the Ten record.

Alive burns through almost 7 minutes, the whole song a defiant celebration of life, and as I listen to it now, it's obvious that the meaning of this song had already begun to change before the full transformation happened in Boston about 8 days after this show took place. Porch is perhaps the greatest song on this 3 disc set. The jam on the middle seemingly will never ever end, and Vedder seems absolutely possessed while singing this song. Lead guitarist Mike McCreedy doesn't seem to ever tire as he just keeps wailing away.

A slow, ethereal Indifference closes out the 3 CD set, a remarkable change of pace from how the rest of the concert seemed to be.

This whole show is available in excellent quality sound through the trading community that Pearl Jam fans have helped make one of the best. However, this 3 CD set is more than worth the price you'll pay to have it. The great music is worth it alone, never mind the collectible value.


Recommended: Yes