I was gutted when I realised that I had missed the Cameron Crowe
Pearl Jam Twenty Film on
BBC4 last week...but good old Virgin On-Demand came through and I sat down with a glass of Ribena and watched it in all it's glory last night.
It's hard to describe the emotions it captured. Back when Pearl Jam released
Ten I really was in that weird place when you don't know who you are. There is no better illustration of this then being the first person in my school year to buy '
Nevermind' ( on tape ) on the same day I bought '
But Seriously'....yes I was that messed up.
There is certainly no denying that Eddie Vedder is one of the most talented musicians of our time. Seeing footage in the film of him singing 'Alive' after being with the band for only one week was inspiring. In recent years he has even made the Ukulele
cool ( and who would have thought that is possible? ).
I am going to make sure I keep a copy of this movie so I can show my girls when they have grown up. It pretty much defines the mighty Grunge period from which I came. And before you start mocking, back when I was growing up only real tools liked the Smiths (
all your Hipsters just started liking them when someone with tight jeans on said it was cool to do so ). The Google generation listened to Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and Nirvana. We wore bad fitting jumpers, baggy jeans and trainers, army rucksacks with band names written on in blank ink (
though to be fair my pencil case did say 'Clapton is God' in humble reference to the grafitti which covered the streets of London during his time with John Mayall ) and we took the headbanging and moshing of our Heavy Metal cousins to a new level.
It's true, I went to a fancy school and instead of having long hair, I had a side parting. But anyone who knew me in my school days would testify that I never did conform. Under that itchy blazer I wore this
t-shirt ( sorry girls if you are reading this when you are older...those are indeed rude words ).
But back to the film. If you are sitting there typing on your Mac or listening to music stream through Spotify, remember the generation which was vilified by the oldies for being miserable and underachievers, then look around you. We made this. ( yes we are arrogant too ).
Oh and whilst it wasn't in the film, this is the track which defined Pearl Jam for me...in my humble opinion, one of the greatest performances of the decade.
Off to sort out my iPod playlist for the drive home.....
