Poke-jam

Well today I bought 3 of Pearl Jam's double-CD concert albums. I've got London, England; Katowice, Poland; and Milan, Italy. I'm listening to the London show right now and the sound quality is excellent. So now that I have these three, I have to collect them all. 3 down, 22 to go. =)

This is just one of the many reasons why PJ is my favorite group. Who else would release 25 double-CDs all at once? I see this as something they're doing for the dedicated fans, and not to make a shit-load of money. If they wanted to rake in the dough, they would have done this 8 years ago when everybody and their mothers were on the PJ bandwagon. Right now, they're in it for the music and the fans.

Their most popular song, "Last Kiss" was originally distributed to fan club members, but it started to get a lot of airplay. Instead of releasing a single to the public and making a profit, they released the single and had all the proceeds go towards aiding the refugees in Kosovo. Gotta respect that. They could have released a more "radio-friendly" (i.e. more upbeat and not 6 minutes long) single for their newest album, but they didn't. They released a mellow and dark song that had a lot of meaning to the band. And I totally respect that.

In response to their declining sales, Ed Vedder said he has an audience to be proud of. Well I'm proud to be a Pearl Jam fan.