A few months back, Pearl Jam spoke of a little scheme to beat the bootleggers at their own game.
They would take a raw soundboard DAT from every show of their 'Binaural' tour, cut them to CD and make copies available, for minimal cost, from their website.
Fans would be encouraged to trade CD-R copies and share ripped MP3s via Napster, ensuring that everyone who wanted a recording of these shows got one that sounded good, while bootleggers failed to make a penny from the band or their fans.
It was a good plan, a shrewd one, and we should expect it to become more and more commonplace as the Internet burrows ever deeper into our daily lives, bandwidth grows to match, and music distribution becomes simply a matter of pressing a few buttons.
But it didn't happen this time. The illegal CDs were made and sold as per usual, the bootleggers got their cash, and time has past. But Pearl Jam - never ones to give up on a good idea once it turns bad - have opted instead to release them all through more conventional means, which is why this set of albums - 25 in all - have appeared four months later, and cover their European dates only.
Unless you're a die-hard devotee, however, they're not for you. Their album 'Live On Two Legs' was only released two years ago, and the principal differences between it and these shows are tracks from last album 'Binaural', probably their least essential recording yet.
But if you were there, and want a souvenir - or if you're a bootleg collector, used to making do with recordings made by audience members at least one will be worth your while.
Buy them all, though, and you're a nutter.
