Holding Poison is a groovy tune

Yes it does. I spent the rest of my music listening time yesterday on Down on the Upside.

its times like these you learn to live again

Indeed it is, friend dev.

they're a much tighter live act in 2021 than Pearl Jam

Now that you said that, do you guys often compare the two of them? I got a friend that whenever I mention Pearl Jam, he immediately take the conversation to the Foo court and try to convince me they are the better and more relevant band, and Im like, who the fuck cares! Is there a little cold war between the fans?

Alt take: their live sets don’t sound one note different from their studio recordings and that is so fucking lame

Don't they inject a bunch of random, meandering jams though? Or did they stop doing that after 2005, when I completely lost track of this band?

I’ve never seen that, but it’s entirely possible. I also don’t pay attention any more.

But that is not true. They change arrangements (for better or worse) of some of their most popular tunes.

I just saw they’re nominated for the R&RHOF this year.

i know you've got a lot going on but please see my above post!

i saw them live two times, the first one was okey, but it was super had because of one of the biggest storms in Buenos Aires. The second one was kinda boring...3 hours, Grohl screaming....the did a cool medley and Dave Krusen came to play drums for Miss You so that was cool.
But i realized i dont need to see them again.

I’m taking it one post at a time.

And I’ve not seen them in 9 years so who the fuck knows what they even do nowadays?

I saw them once in 1998, during that period when Pat Smear had left and Franz Stahl was on guitar.

I don't remember much about it, though I recall they opened with an instrumental with both Dave and Taylor on drums and that was unexpected.

that guy and the original drummer...they were really treated like shit uh

Granted I have seen the Foo Fighters 4 times to Pearl Jam’s 22(?), but their shows are very different animals. Pearl Jam’s sets are for lack of a better term, more organic. They tend to ebb and flow with the band and crowd playing off each other and don’t solely rely on repeated gimmicks (the call and response on some songs and the cell phones in the air from 2016-2018 are maybe the exceptions to this). Pearl Jam doesn’t play the same songs every night, and vary their set lists wildly.

Foo Fighters is more of a stage production. Dave Grohl is an excellent entertainer and plays off the everything is an epic anthem shtick for 3 hours. The running through the crowd at the exact same moment in the set to the stage in the middle, or the yells, or the various other histrionics are all choreographed. Makes for a tight show when there’s not much in variation. The songs do have different arrangements but the execution of those different arrangements are identical whether you see them in New York City or Salt Lake City. It’s meant to be that way. Pearl Jam shows are not. Pearl Jam’s sense of improvisation is not in the typical sense of a jazz band or the Grateful Dead (both things i hold dear), but more on sensing the moment and adjusting on the fly to maximize the experience of that particular night and not the live experience in the larger sense across years and tours. They live for that night, and when they move on to the next, it’s about what that next night brings.

Hey, here's that dual drum intro from a show in Japan immediately prior to that Australian tour, pretty much exactly as I remember it:

Yeah this feels right. Your mileage may vary, but I hate it.