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| Pearl Jam opens up on 20 years of rock fame Posted: 16 Sep 2011 05:59 PM PDT TORONTO, Sept 16 (Reuters): Cameron Crowe's documentary "Pearl Jam Twenty" takes viewers on a 20-year behind-the-scenes journey with a band that has reached the top of the rock 'n' roll pantheon while refusing to embrace the spotlight. "It's more than just a rock documentary," Academy Award winner Crowe said of the film he pieced together from over 1,200 hours of archived footage and recent interviews. Highs like Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder slow-dancing with Nirvana's Kurt Cobain beneath a stage while Eric Clapton plays "Tears in Heaven" above intersect lows like the suffocation deaths of nine fans at the band's Roskilde, Denmark concert in 2000, throughout the two-hour film. "I'm still emotionally coming down from parts of it," guitarist Mike McCready said in an interview along with the rest of the band and Crowe following the premier of the documentary at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). "I had to sit down a while ago because I was overwhelmed ... much like a concert, but even more so." Crowe, director of "Jerry Maguire" and a rock journalist in Seattle in the '80s, spent three years making the film. It hits movie screens worldwide on Sept. 20 for a one-night showing, then runs for a week in select markets starting on Sept. 23. The Seattle-based group is also releasing a 384-page book and a 29-song soundtrack to mark its first two decades. A DVD of the documentary with extra footage will follow. There are points in the film where the band appears near collapse, such as during its battle against Ticketmaster in the mid-90's, or the Roskilde tragedy, which drummer Matt Cameron said was for him the most wrenching part of watching the film. "But it's an important part of our story too, of our survival, because we could have easily thrown in the towel," he said. "It brings memories to the front by sort of reliving it with an audience. That catharsis was very real with all of us." The birth of Pearl Jam followed the drug overdose of Andrew Wood, the charismatic singer of Mother Love Bone, in 1990. That group's guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament later hooked up with McCready and Soundgarden's Cameron. Together they brought in Vedder, a surfer from San Diego, to sing. Pearl Jam played their first show six days later. Fame came quickly, but the band turned their backs on it. Vedder did not want to make videos, and in his acceptance speech for best hard rock performance at the 1996 Grammy Awards, he said, "this doesn't mean anything." Twenty years on, Pearl Jam is ready to open up about its rise to fame and struggle to avoid its trappings. "We've kept it all pretty tight," Gossard said, adding that at this point, "it's good to not be afraid to kind of let out some stuff and let people in to see how the process works and what the personalities are like." In the film, Cameron interviews the band members in their homes, and Gossard has a hard time finding any Pearl Jam paraphernalia. All of the band members have side projects that keep them busy, from Vedder's ukulele album, to Cameron's work on a new Soundgarden CD, and Ament's new band Tres Mts. "When we do put on the shoes that we wear in this band, it's such a treat," Ament said. "We're not always under the lights and when we played Montreal the other night, I was like, 'Oh my God, wow! This is the most insane thing ever!'" The band squeezed in TIFF just days into a 22-date tour. They played a two-and-a-half hour set in Toronto on Sunday to a sold-out arena that ended with an epic version of Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World," featuring "uncle Neil" himself wailing away with the band to the thrill of the crowd. Pearl Jam has worked with Young in the past and credits the nearly 66-year-old with being a major inspiration. Vedder attended Young's premier before dashing off for Pearl Jam's second sold-out Toronto concert on Monday. Back in 1991, when the band played their first show, they had eight songs. "Now we can play, literally, almost 140 songs at any given time," Vedder said. And do they have another 20 years in them? "I dare you to come up and try to keep up with me, Matt, or any of us," Vedder said. |
| Pearl Jam, Cameron Crowe recount favorite rock docs Posted: 16 Sep 2011 05:57 PM PDT TORONTO, Sept 16 (Reuters): "Pearl Jam Twenty" is a film by Academy Award winning director Cameron Crowe that chronicles the first two decades of the band's existence. It debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival, where documentaries about music and those who make it took center stage this year, with films featuring U2, Paul McCartney, and Neil Young also being screened. Crowe and the band sat down with Reuters after a screening of their film and talked about some the music documentaries that really affected them. Here's what they had to say. Cameron Crowe: "Can I do two? Okay, 'Gimme Shelter,' and 'Don't Look Back.' 'Gimme Shelter,' because it's just amazing, on-the-fly filmmaking on this incredible event - Altamont." "'Don't Look Back' just captures the white-hot heat of somebody who's exploding and there are cameras and microphones heading their way everywhere they go and it's Bob Dylan and they expect him to be profound and he's that and he's everything else and they caught it all on film and it's great. Eddie Vedder: "'The Kids are Alright,' and 'Last Waltz.' I got caught smoking pot and I got grounded for a week in the summer and it wasn't that bad, because all I did was listen to 'Last Waltz' for 18 hours-a-day." Matt Cameron: "I saw 'Jimi plays Berkley.' And the film '(Jimi) Hendrix.' Those two movies kind of blew my mind as a teen ... And also, Freddie and his friends, ('Freddie Mercury - The Untold Story') about Freddie Mercury's home life. It had nothing to do with Queen, just how he was as a person, and all of these people just loved the hell out of him. It was mind-blowingly cool." Jeff Ament: "There was a documentary that came out three or four years ago called "American Hardcore." That was sort of the music that I learned how to play to to some degree and I saw some of those bands, but ... to see some of the footage of some of the Detroit bands and the Boston bands was pretty amazing." Stone Gossard: "'Spinal Tap' has got to be in there too. It really is something that affected me hugely." Mike McCready: "I would say life-changing was 'Woodstock,' when it was on TV. Certainly, my first concept of a rock singer ever was probably Roger Daltrey at Woodstock doing his thing and going, 'Fuck! There's a rock singer, that's what they look like.' And Hendrix, of course - his version of 'The Star Spangled Banner' was the one that went into my soul and I grabbed it, grabbed it and I ran with it. "And in terms of just changing my way of playing, probably seeing The Band, 'Last Waltz' and watching Muddy Waters on that - that changed my mind-set in a day in moving away from metal and going, 'hey, it can be a lot more simple and a lot more emotional. You don't have to play a thousand notes, or wear a silly-ass jacket." |
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