It's easy, then, to picture Pearl Jam making a big deal out of their first-ever official live release. Just imagine Vedder & Co. huddled around a massive mixing board, sifting through bucket-loads of concert recordings made since their 1990 inception. It's certainly no stretch to see the band waiting to release what they hope will be the perfect multidisc set, just as Bruce Springsteen waited 14 years to issue his live behemoth in 1986.

Thank God they nixed that idea and instead decided to release Live On Two Legs a scant 62 days after completing the American tour that provided the recordings. By catching everyone unaware, the band imbues the album with the actual feeling of a concert souvenir and avoids the inevitable anticipation for "the next Pearl Jam album." At the same time, because fans have so long clamored for a live release, the album still carries a special cachet, unlike concert discs from the Rolling Stones, who release live albums with such predictability that they could sell subscriptions.

If the new PJ is not quite "Shit Hot And Rockin'" (as one of my favorite Springsteen bootleg titles reads), most of its 16 songs land enough strong, solid punches to make Live On Two Legs a satisfying alternative to the scores of expensive, live Pearl Jam boots out there.

While Yield and its predecessor No Code (1996) have revealed a band growing increasingly deft in its songwriting, Pearl Jam have yet to eschew pure rock energy. The live versions of songs from those albums demonstrate that the band can still kick out the jams with the arena-sized hugeness that attracted fans to songs such as "Even Flow" in the early '90s.

"Hail, Hail," for instance, always a pulsating track, is seductively punishing here in the relentless guitar rhythms of Mike McCready and Stone Gossard. On "Do The Evolution," Vedder's distinctive voice is so guttural that it sounds like he crawled from the primordial swamps just before the recording; by the time he growls "baaabbbeeehhhhhh!" almost three minutes in, he sounds ready for extinction.

None of the songs here differ so radically from their original incarnation as to invite substantial reconsideration of the material. But interestingly, revelatory bits do raise their heads here and there. McCready's guitar break on "Daughter," for one, never sounded country-influenced to me before; here, however, it sounds like it would fit right at home on Uncle Tupelo's first album.

Or just maybe on a Crazy Horse disc. Pearl Jam invoke Neil Young's spirit all over Live On Two Legs to varying degrees of success. The insertion of a verse of "Rockin' In The Free World" into "Daughter" is well-placed, taking "Daughter"'s subject out of her house and into the streets where she sadly won't rise above, as the original song optimistically hopes she will. However, the album's closer, "F*ckin' Up" (from Neil Young's 1990 Ragged Glory album), is a novel but uninspired cut, owing in part to the fact that it's far from one of Young's finest creations. (What would have been more satisfying is to hear Pearl Jam tackle one of the songs from their 1995 collaboration with Young, Mirror Ball.)

While Live On Two Legs does offer a balanced mix of the band's career (no studio disc is represented by more than three cuts), the songs included here are not necessarily their finest work. The album settles in for a bit of a lull in the middle with "Elderly Woman Behind The Counter In A Small Town," "Untitled," "MFC" and "Go." "MFC" in particular seems an odd choice. On Yield it comes across with pleasurable speed, but it's slick, studio propulsion. Other songs from that album -- "Faithful," "In Hiding" -- rumble like a Chevelle to "MFC"'s Porsche-like qualities and seem ripe for live excursions.

Other cuts on Live On Two Legs, however, ring true as perfect for inclusion. No Code's "Red Mosquito" and "Off He Goes" -- in addition to being sharp executions -- actually seem like inadvertent compliments to drummer Jack Irons, who sat out from the tour to deal with bipolar disorder (he was temporarily replaced by ex-Soundgarden pounder Matt Cameron). Because it was Irons who brought much of No Code to life, putting the songs from that album that he touched most ("Who We Are," "In My Tree") on Live On Two Legs would have been a slap in the face. As it stands, it seems Cameron is just filling in while the band holds Irons' place in the group for him.

That same sort of thoughtfulness comes through loud and clear on the new album's packaging. In addition to reprinting for fans the individual tour posters from each stop of the American outing, the cover includes numerous photos of the staff who on most tours go unrecognized. It's that kind of gesture that may someday earn Pearl Jam the "Most Considerate Band In Show Business" award.

Just mark another notch in that belt of overachievement.