Three Things Realized After Watching "Pearl Jam: Twenty"

So I finally got a chance to sit down and watch the Cameron Crowe quasi-documentary of the Seattle area band Pearl Jam; "Twenty ." "Twenty" is a documentary in that it's telling the story of what led up to the band Pearl Jam, their meteoric rise to fame, as well as some of their pitfalls along the way. But "Twenty" is so much more than a retrospective documentary for the band; in part because the band are still active. "Twenty" includes so much of the "Seattle sound" (Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden) as well as the tragedy which preceded Pearl Jam; the death of Andy Wood; former front man of the band Mother Love Bone and the side project which was spawned in his wake, Temple of the Dog.

Pearl Jam was my band of choice growing up. In the late 80's I gleaned onto many of the anti-hair-band hair-bands (Guns n' Roses, Metallica) but when I was coming of age there was one voice who reached out to me, grabbed me by the larynx and shocked my eyes to open to the world around me. Yes, lead singer of Pearl Jam Eddie Vedder does mumble and garble sometimes, but show me someone who has constant clarity in life always and I'll show you someone who has shut off some part of their consciousness for whatever reason. Pearl Jam were freeing, they remain active, and they went all the way to Washington DC to stand up for what they felt was right. Here are three things I realized about Pearl Jam from this powerful documentary.

Pearl Jam Fought Ticketmaster on their own: One of the big moves Pearl Jam made as a band was they decided the service fees of Ticketmaster were too high. I remember the event happening; what I had forgotten was that they did this totally on their own. There were no other bands who stood by them and even though they were already wildly popular at this point in their career; they certainly had not achieved the status they have today. A band who has been through it all and come out on the other side, Pearl Jam "Twenty" cements my impression that this was a band who played by their own rules.

Kurt Cobain Hated Pearl Jam...At First: Maybe this was just the newly famous individual in him not wanting to share the spotlight, but Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain didn't like Pearl Jam at all...at first. I was too young at the time to sift through the messages of these two favorite rockers of mine to draw the parallel at the time, but it was there.

Pearl Jam's First Ten Years : Another thing I realized about the band is that they really pulled back in the last 10 years. I was reminded of the event in Denmark in June 2000 when 8 fans were crushed to death at a concert they were playing at during the Roskilde Rock & Dance Festival. I recently saw Eddie Vedder on his ukulele tour and it seemed as though many of the longtime fans were egging him on to crowd surf of something like that. But it never happened.

Of course Pearl Jam's music and influence on my young self is also a big part of the attraction. Many kids these days growing up on Justin Bieber and Justin Timberlake will have their own piece of reality to deal with later on. But for fans who grew up in the flannel-laden 90's, "Twenty" takes fans on a trip down memory lane.


Sources:

http://www.pj20.com/countdown/

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1121704/pearl-jam-fans-trampled-death.jhtml
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8166871/eddie_vedder_at_beacon_theatre.html?cat=33