Dublin, Ireland 6/01/00

In accordance with the many anti-corporate codes of honour that make life in the Ed-Ved band seem akin to a ten year stretch in some post-grunge version of the Navy Seals (or worse, a spell as Rage Against The Machine’s stylist), the Jam have done the Dead thing and assembled a whole slew of official live bootlegs, each one slated for release in the very territory it was recorded in.

So, Ireland gets last June’s Point gig, judged in these pages by Fiona Reid to have been a good-humoured and user-friendly night out.

They get better with age. The first time I heard their bigger-than-Jesus debut Ten I thought it sounded like a PC Whitesnake. Since then, the group haven’t quite become as important a force as they’d once threatened, but so much the better – I prefer ’em loose (vicar).

For example, the roughshod MC5 fury of tunes like ‘Lukin’ or ‘Do The Evolution’ comes off much better than the furrowed ponderings of even a tried and tested set closer like ‘Alive’. With the honourable exception of

then drummer Jack Irons, a term as a surrogate Crazy Horse for Neil Young (seemingly reprised here on an extended ‘Black’) exposed all the players’ shortcomings in the shady areas between slow dirge and third

gear – PJ function much better as a garage act,

providing light relief to Mr Ed’s serious-as-haemorrhoids emotage.

To be fair though, the group have long since pared back all the cock-rock chops that made their first couple of records so unlovable, and seem to have settled into some kind of self-acceptance as a superlative fuzz-rock combo. And when Vedder puts that great growly voice of his to good use on the occasional killer melody, as in ‘Faithful’ or ‘Given To Fly’ (a strange mutation between Tori’s ‘Silent All These Years’ and mid-period Zeppelin) they truly stir the blood.

This, like most bootlegs and live albums, is an honest document for true believers, although collectors of the back catalogue may find it surplus to requirements.