PJ20

I just got home a little while ago from seeing “PJ20”, the outstanding Cameron Crowe documentary on Pearl Jam. The film does a great job of telling the Pearl Jam story starting with the early days of Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament in the ill-fated band Mother Love Bone which collapsed after the death by overdose of singer Andrew Wood. Stone and Jeff decide to forge on and the story continues when they find a surfer guy named Eddie Vedder to sing for them and shortly thereafter, things take off like a rocket ride as Pearl Jam attains meteoric success. There were also a few bumps over the course of the last two decades but at the end of the film you appreciate the members of Pearl Jam as strong survivors who withstood a number of things that have ended countless other bands.

The film starts out with grainy video of the old days and as soon as the band attains success you can see the quality of the footage improve as if on cue. Over the course of “PJ20” you also see the progression of the musicians as their frenetic on-stage energy tempers with age. That's not to say that the energy of their performances is lessened because the passion is still evident. The 2006 live clip of “Release” from their debut Ten is absolutely spellbinding as is the campfire singalong of “Better Man” from Madison Square Garden in 2010. Their take on the Mother Love Bone tune “Crown Of Thorns” gave me the same goose-bump feelings I had when I first heard the original 20 years ago. As they got older they seem to have channeled their energy into the music. No one feels the need to jump around too much these days and Eddie no longer needs to climb scaffolding to prove a point (though he's been known recently to do a bit of scaling). Their endurance over the last 20 years has said enough for them.

The journey wasn't always graceful. For one thing, it's a little awkward to hear them reject the concept of the Grammys but still feel compelled to show up to the ceremony. It's never easy to listen to hugely successful bands as they denigrate the trappings of fame and a life that most people will only dream of living. They were more or less forced into an awful no-win position by their participation in the Justice Department inquiry into Ticketmaster. When they were willing to take a stand, the rest of their peers in the industry stood back and let them take the heat. When you watch the rapid transformation of Eddie Vedder from bra-wearing jokester to the more stoic guy we know today, you see the change as a by-product of the immense pressure that Pearl Jam faced when they were put under the microscope of public scrutiny. All of the people who criticized their rejection of mainstream success overlooked the very important point that they didn't ask for the Time magazine covers or the media blitzkrieg that ensued in the wake of their success. The only thing that Pearl Jam has wanted was to be a band making the best music possible.

It was delightful to take a stroll through all of that history. What I liked about the early part of the film was the portrayal of the pre-explosion Seattle scene as a place where musicians genuinely liked each other and supported each other. Until now, I had no idea about how Chris Cornell served as a mentor to Eddie Vedder during the Mookie Blaylock days. For me, it was a heartwarming look back at a band that I was totally enamored with when I was living in Seattle back in the 90s. (I once almost hit Eddie with my car because he wasn't paying attention as he was crossing the street.) While I'm not playing their more recent albums in constant rotation these days, I'll never tire of the first three Pearl Jam albums. “Vs.” in particular will always stay with me as it was given to me while I was in bed recovering from a very serious case of food poisoning. I will never forget standing on my futon bed and being seemingly healed by the music. I was uplifted from the opening strains of “Go” and the feeling did not subside for the remainder of the album.

“PJ20” is the story of a group of guys who stayed the course no matter what was thrown their way. When the pitfalls of mega-success began creeping in, the band chose to retreat and stay true to themselves. In an era of “American Idol” and short-attention-span success cycles, watching this film makes you appreciate what it means to be in for the long haul and especially all of the crap that comes with the territory. Cameron Crowe truly captures the dynamics of the bonds that these guys have shared.