We're All Still Alive: Pearl Jam Twenty Reviewed

Pearl Jam Twenty is a documentary about Pearl Jam. Basically, it could have been a blank screen playing Pearl Jam songs for two hours and I would have loved every second. This is to say that any kind of "review" or level of detached and impartial criticism is impossible for me, but here are some thoughts anyway.

Directed by Cameron Crowe, Pearl Jam Twenty is basically the best episode of Behind the Music ever. Crowe doesn't bother reinventing the wheel here: he shows the band from its Mother Love Bone roots (for non-fans: Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were in the band Mother Love Bone with lead singer Andrew Wood; after Wood died from a drug overdose, they sent out instrumental demos and found Eddie Vedder) to its meteoric rise to fame in the early '90s, to its fights with the established conventions of fame in the mid-'90s, to its current position — the world's best touring band, with a loyal army of fans and little other new listeners. For any band, it's a roadmap that should be followed: Pearl Jam was able to withstand the tidal wave of success and come through the other side stronger and better.

If there are blind spots to Pearl Jam Twenty, it's that Crowe doesn't get to the heart of what kept Pearl Jam together. Around the time of the band's infamous fight with Ticketmaster — Pearl Jam didn't want its fans to have to pay (gasp!) $30 for tickets to concerts; now Pearl Jam concert tickets run upward of $70-80 — guitarist Mike McCready said he felt a break-up was imminent. That didn't happen obviously — Crowe alludes to the idea that Vedder became more collaborative and comfortable with the band — but it's never really dissected the way a fan would want. Rock bands break up all the time — hello, R.E.M.! — but Pearl Jam hasn't. The question of "why?" doesn't get answered in Pearl Jam Twenty, beyond the idea that these are five guys who just love playing music and kinda love hanging out with each other. (Crowe also alludes to the fact that the death of nine fans at the Roskilde Festival in 2000 helped put things in perspective, but doesn't actually go there.) That's enough, but you can't help feeling there's something more to the longevity.

Still, what Pearl Jam Twenty lacks in overall insight, it makes up for in footage. Crowe has pieced together a crazy amount of unseen stuff — everything from the band's first performance of "Alive" with Eddie Vedder (which sounds exactly like versions played in 2011 sound; amazing) to random shots of Ament playing basketball in Seattle before the band even formed to Eddie and Kurt Cobain dancing under the stage at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1992. It's comprehensive and unbelievable, especially when you consider that most of it was shot before everyone had a cell phone that doubled as a video camera.

More than the nostalgia trip, though, the footage shows the evolution of an earnest band trying to stay true to itself. Being earnest isn't cool anymore, obviously — this is the age of Twitter, when everything can and should be parsed down into 140 characters of snark — but Eddie, Stone, Jeff, Mike and Matt are earnest. Yeah, Eddie is sorta pretentious, but you can tell he cares: not just about his own legacy, but the legacy of rock 'n' roll. That's kinda important, since there aren't real rock bands anymore. (Does Radiohead count as rock? Discuss.) When Pearl Jam was on the cover of TIME, it's doubtful many thought the band would still be carrying water for the cause 20 years later, yet here they are: classic rockers still rocking for the devoted few. Pearl Jam Twenty is for those people. We're all still alive, and it's nice to be reminded why.