I hate live performance versions of songs, I would rather play the originals. I am not a fan of Pearl Jam though, so I guess it doesn't matter here.

I hope Rock Band fan boys will finally shut up now and stop whining about Activision Blizzard "whoring" the Guitar Hero series. Counting the other track packs, this is the 10th game in the Rock Band series since 2007:

Rock Band
Rock Band 2
Rock Band Track Pack Volume 1
Rock Band Track Pack Volume 2
AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack
Rock Band Track Pack: Classic Rock
The Beatles: Rock Band
LEGO Rock Band
Rock Band Unplugged
Pearl Jam Live: Rock Band Track Pack (speculation on my part, but this is what I guess it will be called)

To be fair Track Pack Vol 1, 2, Classic Rock are discs with existing DLC for people who don't have access to DLC or prefer to get them in disc form.

Yeah, I wouldn't call the Track Pack actual sequels within the Rock Band canon. This game is coming out next year, meaning that this year we only get two games; Rock Band Lego and Beatles. This still doesn't does the massive milking Activision is doing with Guitar Hero, with more than 4 releases in just a year.

Pearljam seems like kind of an obsecure choice for this kind of stint.

Wasn't Pearl Jam the one bad that made a stink about appearing in music videos? if so, I am surprised they accepted to appear on this.

More obscure than Van Halen?

Live PJ is as good as it gets. I prefer nearly every song in its live iteration. I am, however, disappointed with the lack of any pre-2003 performances. It's not like the 2003 boots used the same production style as the 2006 boots either so I can't understand why the eartlier tours  don't get a guernsey. Not to mention some of the performances chosen are pretty average or complete fuck ups in the case of Satan's Bed 2003. I am impressed that a couple of shows I went to made the cut.

The set list is pretty decent, but when I intially heard of this I thought the 10 club was going to get a say in song choices which would have been cool. As it is the set contains only a few surprises but they'll be fun to play / sing I'd think.

Edit: Obscure? Um what? The fact that they are one of the greatest live bands in the world with a huge catalogue of recorded shows makes PJ an easy choice for this.

@ Pap: Yeah they didn't do videos for their second, third, fourth or sixth albums. They've been doing music videos for a while again now so it's not too surprising. Especially since Ten was released recently on Rock Band.

For many bands, live shows are a vain attempt to reproduce a studio track that was created with far more sophisticated recording equipment, not to mention extensive post-production.

For a few bands, live shows are a chance to evolve their studio tracks, to try new things and in some cases even be spontaneous and improvisational.  The results can be inconsistent, but they are usually interesting because, as an attendee, you get to watch the band create music that you've never heard before.

Pearl Jam is among the latter group.  It makes total sense to do a package of their best live performances.

NOW BRING ON MY PHISH GAME.

I've never even heard of Pearl Jam until a couple of weeks ago, and now they are getting their own music game. Talk about a meteoric rise to fame.

So long as "Do the Evolution" makes it through the voting process and into the game, I'm good. too bad there's no point to buy additional games and track packs on the Wii. Good thing Harmonix left out that little exporting feature for us.

You're kidding, right?

Rock Band will always be cooler than Guitar Hero.  You don't see Harmonix chasing every big name band out there just to put out a quick cash-in game.  They always do something extra, and letting the fans pick these live versions is but one example.

As a music fan, it's obvious to me that the Rock Band people know, and care, about music.

I'm surprised Pearl Jam is now regarded as an "obscure band".  I guess I just associate them with the 90's when they were the biggest band in the land.

I was interested until I found out it was live tracks.  I lost interest in the AC/DC track pack for the same reason.  Now both of those acts are AMAZING live acts.  But I really only like live music when I'm there at the show.  Hearing it on an album to me is a big waste of time with some exceptions.  I want this game but I want it with studio recordings.  Much like the AC/DC track pack this is almost exactly what I want but one detail completely ruins it for me.

I also notice that Immortality is not one of the possible tracks. :(  And I was hoping for Yellow Ledbetter just so that we could find out what the lyrics are.

EA is used to only milking the same game once a year.  This is sort of new to them; don't worry--they'll get better at it.  ;)

Unfortunately, she's not kidding.  Apparently selling 13 million copies of your debut album in North America alone won't get you noticed in Stupid Mop's home.

Most of the Harmonix team are musicians themselves.

And they work under the MTV umbrella, so yeah thats some musical integrity right there ;)

They are always semi-improv'd but with recurring themes / lines. Adds to the mystery of it all. During Ed's solo tour a fan asked what are the lyrics to YL and Eddie responded: 'Wait … you mean there’s lyrics?' He then expounded on the meaning at least:

He then proceeds to tell the story surrounding the lyrics, saying it was written around the time of the Gulf War when “Papa Bush” was President. He knew an “alternative-looking” friend from Seattle who received a “yellow letter” when his brother died in the war. Ed was walking with this friend and there was a flag hanging from a porch on a house along the road. When the friend acknowledged the flag patriotically, the people seemed to not reciprocate his homage (”but they don’t wave”) because of his appearance.

Oh God, could EA and Activision please subscribe to the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction and just stop with this Guitar Game warfare?  Every time I go to EB, I have to navigate this complex labyrinth of Guitar Hero/RockBand/Guitar Band/DJ Hero/Rock Hero/ Guitar Hero: Metallica boxes just to get to the REAL games.  And yes, I just went there.  Somebody had to say it.

The "meteoric rise" part was a joke, but I'm not kidding about the other part. I don't follow the whole music scene so I don't know anything about bands and groups and such. I might have heard of Pearl Jam before but I wouldn't remember them. I'm sure there are lots of music groups I've never heard of or wouldn't recall.

The amount of stuff I've never heard of would shock and amaze you. I'd give you an example, but, well, I've never heard of it!

I agree about the number of games released, it seems pointless what with DLC. But, rhythym games are 'real games', just because you may not like them doesn't effect that. That comment seems similar to saying that FPS's are mindless and fighting games are button mashers. Saying that, I don't actually enjoy the playing experience of Guitar Hero type games, it's mindless and full of button mashing. ;)

Noun

game (countable and uncountable; plural games)

  1. (countable) A pursuit or activity with rules performed either alone or with others, for the purpose of entertainment.

Technically any stupid activity you can come up with to entertain yourself could be considered a game. Deeming these as not real games is as ridiculous as me declaring that the mainline Pokémon sequels are remakes.

MTV Games bought them out a few years. I guess their success on Frequency, Amplitude, Karaoke Revolution(the gamecube,ps2,xbox ones), and Guitar Hero made them a nice acquisition target.

I don't understand why they keep doing all these band specific games as their Live incarnations. Though I really enjoy live incarnations of songs, I feel like the fidelity of the sound isn't quite there for a game based on music. AC/DC Live really drove that point home for me.

It's also a bit of a bummer that Pearl Jam was the next band on Harmonix's list. I really dislike their music, and I heard enough of them on the radio in the 90s that I doubly dislike them.

On that note, where's my Rock Band: System of a Down Edition?

phew, glad i'm not the first one that had to go there :)

Give me Def Leppard's Hysteria in some way, shape or form.  For crying out loud.