Pearl Jam Twenty (2011)

[Joker]

HD Trailer

In Seattle in 1990, Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard decided to form a new band after the lead singer of their previous band, Mother Love Bone, died of an overdose. Then they get a new lead singer named Eddie Vedder and their band takes off. Due to a legal issue with their original band name they re-christen themselves Pearl Jam and climb to the top of the charts. They find their own sound and build an audience in the burgeoning grunge movement. A comraderie with Soundgarden and a rivalry with Nirvana seem to have made them an incredible hard rock/alternative band.

But success seemed to bring up problems with the music they make seeming too commercial-seeming (neither Pearl Jam or Nirvana wanted to be on the cover of TIME, but they put Vedder on anyway), then the sudden suicide of Kurt Cobain hits them all like a sledgehammer. A moral conflict with Ticketmaster leads to legal action by the band. Physical distance between Vedder and the band make it seem like they'll break up. Then they decide to rectify it by making the music they want to make and the band is still around today making great music.

Cameron Crowe has crafted a great rockumentary here where the band speaks candidly about their creative process and all of the successes and failures they've had along the way. All of the guys are very down to earth, but Vedder winds up being the most interesting. A quiet and shy guy who never knew his father until after he was dead he winds up being the one most dynamic inverviewee. You actually see his attitude shift in footage from an early concert where he got angry at the rough security there. He also had a habit of climbing up their stages and diving hundreds of feet onto waiting hands to crowd surf.

The guys all come off as being very talented musicians without a lot of the cliched crap that most rockers go through. Full disclosure: I grew up with this band in the 90's so I'm a bit biased. It's still an incredible documentary on an amazing band.

[Mod City]

I have a good friend who is an absolute Pearl Jam freak. He drove two hours to watch this doc at a theater in Sioux City when it came out. Incidentally, he and another buddy were about the only people in the theater, but for this kind of film and that kind of town, it's not surprising.

I haven't seen it, but I was a bit surprised that my friend said he felt it was too fawning over the band. As a Cameron Crowe film, that's not entirely surprising. He definitely enjoyed it, though.

Personally, I could take or leave Pearl Jam. I liked Ten, but I was a fan of Mother Love Bone before they recruited Vedder and preferred their sound. Still, no denying the impact they've had over the years. They do inspire a cult-like following that is quite impressive. Sorta the Steve Jobs of 90s music

[Mod City]

I finally saw this last night and I have to say I really enjoyed it. They do a pretty thorough job of covering the early Seattle scene as well as Mother Love Bone and the death of Andrew Wood. After that, there's a ton of interesting perspective on Pearl Jam proper as they started a new journey, especially for a viewer who pretty much stopped listening to them around Vs. and didn't pay attention to the music media for a long time.

It's definitely a portrait done by an admirer, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. You don't see a lot of the dirty laundry audiences have come to expect from shows like Behind The Music. And frankly, I'm not sure how knowing about how someone in the band punched someone else out before a show over an argument over drugs or what have you helps me understand the band. I took it for what it is - a tribute, not an expose.

It's not all high points. The death of nine audience members at the Roskilde festival adds some weight to an otherwise generally uneventful run in the 1990s and 2000s. There's some focus on Vedder's childhood, but it seems he's probably delved deeper into his feelings about that in his lyrics than he does on camera.

But again, that's fine. It's not called "Pearl Jam's Insanely Weird, Sordid Origins And Career". It's called Pearl Jam Twenty, and it's a nice look at this band's steady two decades of making music. No doubt they have some tales to tell that didn't end up on film, but all bands do.

The relationship between the band and Nirvana gets some attention as well. Here Pearl Jam seem pretty laid back, and Nirvana look like a bunch of maniacs. In one clip Cobain looks very unhealthy and Novoselic looks like he's about to either pass out or murder the cameraman. There's a nice shot of Vedder and Cobain together having fun later on. It's all cordially handled, and all quite interesting.

I would like to have heard more comments from people not in the band or not in their close inner circle. I'm sure I could dig up other gripes, but it was kind of nice to get caught up in the Pearl Jam wave after years of being rather dismissive of them.

My favorite part was a moment later in the film that involves the song Crown of Thorns. It's a touching moment that I did not know about or expect.

Definitely worth a look if you remember the days when the "Seattle Sound" was the new thing. Good stuff.