Pitchfork

It's hard to imagine what happened to Pearl Jam. Actually, it's easy to imagine, just a bit inexplicable. They became megahuge, teetered between artiste seclusion and activist overexposure, and then settled into being a band, making albums that were consistently good in spite of diminishing sales. They even began to do things that bands with a quarter of their record sales do. Like tour.

Live on Two Legs documents the band's first full-blown tour since a mostly disastrous 1995 outing. For a band that gained so much exposure initially for its live show, their touring hiatus was a bad move, no matter what the reasons. Thankfully, they didn't lose much by staying out of the spotlight. Songs like "Go" and "Even Flow" are no less visceral here than they were years ago. "Daughter" still fades into another song before fading out. New tracks like "Do the Evolution" and "Given to Fly" have the same shameless emotion as "Better Man" and "Corduroy." Suffice to say, Pearl Jam can still kick it out, and they do at every turn.

Like everyone who loved Pearl Jam and later bought into the mantra that they were pretentious and overrated (only Eddie Vedder, really), Pearl Jam have matured. You can hear that maturity in their new songs, too-- which is fine because they were written in that mindset-- but some of the old songs have begun to sound a bit mature, too, and that's not good. An extra guitar melody added to "Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Town" destroys the simplicity that made the original an unlikely radio ballad. The same mistake is made on a called-in-from-the-bus rendition of "Black," a song that's only as good as the emotion poured into it. And there's the token Neil Young cover, "Fuckin' Up," which might sound better if it wasn't like the jillionth Young cover Pearl Jam has done.

None of this is helped by drummer Jack Irons getting replaced with Matt Cameron (formerly of Soundgarden). Irons' powerful and crisp style is sorely missed compared to Cameron's slavish banging. It also doesn't help that Vedder, once the kind of guy who seemed like he wanted to piss you off with his drama queen insecurity, has taken to lobotomized sarcasm (he introduces "Elderly Woman" by saying "This one's called "Longest Title in the Pearl Jam Catalog"-- you can stop laughing now).

A prematurely mature Pearl Jam is, of course, still better than an immature most bands. But if you're one of those longtime fans that stuck it out while the world said it was no longer cool to like Pearl Jam, Live on Two Legs may leave you wondering what it'd have been like had Pearl Jam never had problems with high ticket sales. Maybe it'd even still be cool to like them.