The concert—which took place on October 22, 2003 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle, Washington—is acoustic, and was performed and released as a benefit for YouthCare, a non-profit charity in Seattle. The album was also released as a limited edition quadruple vinyl through Ten Club, Pearl Jam's fan club. Only 2,000 were pressed—each individually numbered by hand—and sold out within minutes of being on sale.[citation needed]
Live at Benaroya Hall was released through a one-album deal with BMG,[4] and the band used the experiment to later sign with BMG subsidiary J Records to produce the album Pearl Jam (Avocado).[5] It debuted at number 18 on the Billboard 200 chart and sold approximately 52,000 copies in its first week.[6] As of April 2006, Live at Benaroya Hall has sold 168,000 copies in the United States according to Nielsen SoundScan.[5]
Reception
AllMusic staff writer Jason Birchmeier gave the album two and a half out of five stars, writing, "Of the many, many live albums Pearl Jam publicly released, their October 23, 2003, show at Benaroya Hall is one of the more novel ones... Such novelty, of course, doesn't make Benaroya Hall an especially excellent set (in fact, it feels a little one-dimensional and subdued because of the acoustic instrumentation), though it is one of the more unique and interesting of the many, many shows Pearl Jam released publicly over the years."[1]Rolling Stone staff writer Christian Hoard gave the album three out of five stars, writing that the " album's warm, wizened feel and unusual set list are appropriate for souvenir-collecting obsessives and lapsed fans looking for a new take on Pearl Jam's substantial catalog."[3]
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