Pearl Jam Twenty from Pearl Jam on Vimeo.
Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since Pearl Jam came on the scene. When their first album “Ten” came out, my first few listens to it were so-so. I really didn’t like it. I did the same thing with Alice In Chains “Facelift” as well as Guns N’ Roses “Appetite For Destruction“. Obviously, I would later greatly embrace all three. But for Pearl Jam, they ended up being one of my favorite bands.
The roots of Pearl Jam started with a band called Mother Love Bone. Before their first album dropped, their lead singer Andrew Wood died of a herion overdose. After some mourning time, another pre-Pearl Jam iteration – Temple of the Dog, was a tribute band to Andrew Wood, with Chris Cornell of Soundgarden spearheading the project. Eddie Vedder’s demo tape arrived somewhere around this time. And as they say in the entertainment world, the rest is history.
The documentary project, directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Cameron Crowe, is not the first time the band has worked with the famed director. The 1992 movie “Singles” starred many Seattle musicians, including Eddie Vedder as drummer for the movie band Citizen Dick. Add to that Cameron’s music history and this is one of the most anticipated music docs.
The movie plays to a limited number of theaters on September 20th. If a theater is not showing the movie, you can tune into PBS American Masters series on Oct 21st at 9pm ET/PT.
And if that’s not enough, there is also a soundtrack and a book being released for this project, which you can pre-order at the above links.
But wait.. that’s not all. The live cover of “Crown of Thorns” that Pearl Jam performed in 2000 is available for listen below. This song will be part of the soundtrack.
Can you tell I’m excited for this to come out?