Pearl Jam Twenty

"I know someday you'll have a beautiful life. I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky but why...why...WHY can't it be oh can't it be mine?"-Black

That's the song that did it for me. I became a Pearl Jam fan almost instantly twenty years ago this month. While watching this documentary I realized how quickly time does pass us by! I clearly remember my first introduction to Eddie Vedder while watching MTV Unplugged back in March of 1992. I was one month shy from turning sixteen years old and had just recently had my world turned upside down by the discovery of rock music. As I sat and watched Mr. Vedder perched on a stool screeching out the clearly painful lyrics to "Black", he looked as if he were in a hypnotic trance and only he knew the reasons why. Prior to this entree into the world of grunge, I was listening to mostly pop or whatever was on the radio. Ok I'll admit I was one of those crazed teenagers going crazy for boy bands back in the early '90s. I went with the flow and spent those two years screaming and spending an absurd amount on the hysteria. Soon, as with all boy bands, the screaming died down and the fans moved on. I happened to move on to the other side of the boy band spectrum and discovered heavy metal.  I found myself listening to Guns N Roses, Motley Crue, Def Leppard, and Metallica. It was refreshing change for my rising angst ridden teenage emotions. Fortunately I was in the midst of a major turn of events in the music industry. Seattle grunge was about to burst onto the scene. I often feel it came as just the right time in my life. One day I'm squealing over the latest hearthrob and the next I'm finding myself over come with emotion as I listen to Eddie Vedder swing his greasy looking long hair around in an almost mesmerizing spell on stage. I said to myself who IS this guy? He looked like he rolled out of bed and grabbed whatever shirt he had been wearing for days, but his voice was incredible! Even more so his lyrics were gut wrenching and full of anger. Needless to say I was hooked. I quickly picked up Pearl Jam's Ten cd and ended up listening to it so much the cd nearly fell apart. I still have it all scratched up and worn out with repeated plays.  I caught their videos on MTV several times a day and would always stop to listen. I felt he was singing to me and I left behind my world of mainstream pop music and let the guitar riffs seep into my veins. I haven't looked back since. 

In 2011, the long lasting band that is Pearl Jam celebrated a milestone in their career of twenty years. This documentary film was enlightening. Two of the original members were in another band (Mother Love Bone) where their lead singer died of a drug overdose.  Soon after Eddie Vedder came onto the scene, took over, and they became an instant success. Just like that. It took no genius to see how uncomfortable it made Vedder to be such a commercial hit. He was anti-cds, anti- attention, anti-grammys, and basically anti-fame. It always amazes me how these artists complain about success as if it were a curse. I try to put myself in their position and I can't get past all the money they must have been making. Sure it's inconvenient to not have any privacy and to be thought of as "selling out" but it sure does beat starving and not having your music adored by millions. Despite Vedder's antagonism towards fame I never let it dissuade my support. When he shunned the Grammys saying he had no idea what it all meant I just laughed. Many people were angered by Vedder's dismissal of such a prestigious award. I always took the side of PJ. Who is to say who deserves an award for their art? I get what Eddie was saying. His words, his pain, and his music should not be award but embraced by those of us who are lucky enough to make a connection with it. That in itself is the most treasured reward at the end of the day. The documentary goes onto to deal with Pearl Jam's court room drama with Ticketmaster. They felt ticket prices were outrageous and understood how most young fans couldn't afford to see them. It was a commendable moment which of course didn't lead to lowering prices, but did show how much passion they put not only into their music but their fans.

I've been lucky enough to see Pearl Jam three times live over the last 10 years (with tickets purchased at Ticketmaster). I was there at the infamous Nassau Coliseum concert where he wore a Bush mask and had the crowd turn on him. My personal favorite show was at Madison Square Garden. As he crooned Evenflow in front of hundreds of thousands I couldn't help but think back my early days of discovering the band and thinking they were the deepest bunch of young guys on the planet. I have since grown out of that early obsession, but I still find their songs to be some of the most influential and brilliantly written in the last two decades. This documentary shows their origins, their early rise to fame, their ultimate spiral into mini break ups, and basically a burn out from constant attention. I'm proud to be a fan of theirs and even more happy to see they've remained together while so many other early grunge bands had fallen apart. It was a joy to watch and sadly made me see how much music today has become meaningless. But I'll save that rant for another time.