Ok Let’s get the link to it out of the way right off the bat. Go to the link and if you are a fan
and especially if you are a Gen X’er like myself, prepared to get chills. Why do I go “ga ga”
over this band (I will generally be found guilty of stumping two bands: RHCP and PJ) because
in watching the footage from this trailer, the deep and voluminous thronging masses rocking out to one of the best American Rock N Roll Bands ever, I get all gooey and smile because in the middle of one of those crowds back in the 90’s I could have been found moshing right along with the rest of the people feeling the affinity they felt with this band and their music.
Cameron Crowe made this one so I suspect it will be awesome even if you are not a total nutbag fan, like yours truly. This piece of work also includes many, many unseen clips from the Pearl Jam Vault, the fabled Vault that all bands have, where they keep the really good stuff. LOL. But the clips look awesome and make me wish I was standing in the front row and rocking out. (well maybe just sitting in a theater inwardly rocking out) All I can say is this 20th anniversary movie/documentary is the kind of thing that comes along, well, every 20 years or so. This appears to have the same thing Pearl Jam the band has, authenticity. Other bands made similar theater ventures, ahhh cough U2, which were really just exercises in how big can we blow our butt up to the world. This is a legitimate movie that people would pay to go see because it is a true documentary, not fluff or one long music video.
They are that great and they have always done it on their own terms. I have referenced their sincerity just days ago at the release of the WM3 and a while back on why these guys just keep holding it down. I have noticed other people, for some strange reason, lately only start realizing that there was a band named “Pearl Jam” and they did a few albums back in the 90’s (if you do not get my sarcasm get over yourself) I only have this “Where have you been?” like Pearl Jam just all of a sudden appeared. They have been here the whole time like a spiritual, eternal being, well at least one that manifested 20 years ago.
I will not wax, which would be really easy to do, on why this movie makes me smile and feel something that I firmly believe is beyond sentimental, but if it is sentimental give me two more double helpings of it and drop some of that gravy right in that spooned out spot I made for it, yeah right there!
Tag: Pearl Jam
Eddie Vedder was on TV!!! Eddie Vedder was on my television…did I mention Eddie Vedder was on the TV
Yes Eddie Vedder was on TV strumming a 4 string guitar and man I felt the usual thing I felt. A kinship with him when he does his art. What is that exactly. It is like “Yeah Eddie I am with you man.” He looked his usual un-shaven slouchy dressed self, my fashion cue for most of the 90s, and there were no visible marks of a surgeons hands. Eddie keeps it real folks and let’s just face it. You are witnessing, with or W/O 4 string guitar, one of the last ones: a real life rock star.
Why? What do I mean?
There are others and yes some are out there now but not at the regularity they used to be, or at least they are not noticed in the constant sludge of suck and glitter and sheen and plastic and collagen.
Before me that night was what made a rock star, scruffy shoes and all, and what was that? Pure unadulterated passion, great vocal, and a genuine care for his art. When Eddie does it I do not feel like I am getting ripped off. Of course this should not be surprising from someone who was willing to sacrifice his career as a million dollar rock star to fight the system in favor of the fans, his fans, when we did not know an internet from a VCR.
See the fans remember.
Here is proof
When Eddie Vedder and company took on Ticker Master, the only game in town, I thought then “THERE ARE OUR CHAMPIONS.” For the uninitiated you did not take on Ticker Master in the 90’s because they controlled everything in the live world. Imagine being a software company taking on Microsoft? Get the picture. Pearl Jam did they took that s*&^ to Washington. And you know what
Music aside (which is stellar, always)
I have been in their corner ever since.
Thank you Eddie Vedder for being your bad a#$ self!
“I wish I had a record player” YES!
I talk a great deal about music, think about music, and most of all love listening to real music. It is becoming surprising to me when I get involved in talking about music with kids I always learn so much. I am blessed to have an opportunity to experience music, that is in fact what we do when we listen to music: experience it, with kids. I am simply blown away by the taste of young folks. For example, a great deal of music calling itself rock music set beside, now classic things HAH, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Pearl Jam seems really staid and small, most of it and by golly they notice.
And then this explodes into discussions about who influenced these folks and those that influenced those folks, the six degrees of Muddy Waters, etc., etc. And then in the middle of all this a young man, no more than 13 said out of the blue, in the middle of one of these discussions, “I wish I had a record player.”
Yes
there is hope!
Guerilla in the Mix Blog 