Coming on the heels of the Spanish dates opening the
Binaural tour, the first of two sets played at Wembley Arena, London, suffers from more than its share of weaknesses. From the opening "Of the Girl," extremely low-key and moody, the band sounds off,
Eddie Vedder sounds exhausted (between songs banter is better termed confused rambling), songs fall apart and back together again (
Vedder apologizes for making a mess of "Grievance," even), and even the sound of the band verges on lifeless. Wembley isn't kind to live shows in the first place and engineer
Brett Eliason seems not to have been able to overcome it during the show or during the mixing. The band does make an attempt to force the energy level up, though even that doesn't work too well -- the crowd displays great enthusiasm anyway, but the band seems to have had a struggle with this particular show. Of the European leg of the official boots, this is one to skip over. ~ Steven McDonald