1 out of 5

Label: Mercury

Producer: Greg Nori / Jerry Finny

‘Still Waiting’ album version plus two live tracks from ‘the Astoria’.

Live tracks are an incredibly fucking lazy single addition, to me, and reek of just appealing to collectors.  I accept that a lot of these are import singles, which applied to different markets where singles discs were a bit more profitable, so why not just churn ’em out w/o new material, but still.  I’d rather a demo or an alternate/outtake than a live version… unless the band is known for some kind of embellishment live or the performance is otherwise notable, even if a group is ‘amazing’ in a live setting, a live recording – unless it’s a dedicated record for such an event – generally won’t do that amazement justice.

Track 2’s version of ‘In Too Deep’ starts off with a funny detuned riff before wandering into the song, so maybe that’s worth something, but once it gets going, there’s no difference from the album version, unless you count Deryck Whibley’s vocals not sounding so great when they’re not studioed and the guitar solo being totally flubbed and the riffs coming across as pretty thin thanks to a distant sounding recording.  Minus the intro noodling for track 3’s ‘Fat Lip’ and you have a pretty pointless single, which is what this rating is based on.  Nifty glow-in-the-dark packaging, though.