Rocking in the free world: Pearl Jam (Sony Music)
The band that once swore off making videos eventually got over it, and moved into the realm of live releases as well...
Pearl Jam: Touring Band 2000
Pearl Jam made history when they released CDs of every concert on their last world tour to the public. Pearl Jam: Touring Band 2000 may be a single DVD, but should still please the band's fans, featuring 28 songs and nearly an hour of bonus material.
The concert features footage from the band's US dates, with a caption identifying each city at the song's beginning (a quibble: city and date information should have been included in the bonus feature setlist). Indeed, the footage is blended so well, without captions you wouldn't immediately realize the songs are from different performances. Because Pearl Jam utilizes few of the trappings of arena rock shows — you won't find any flash pots or laser light shows in evidence here — it's all down to the band's performance, and they certainly deliver with all the heart and soul they can muster.
In between songs chat is kept to a minimum (a notable exception being when lead singer Eddie Vedder praises the ASL woman signing at the side of the stage, and hauls her up for her own round of applause); this is a band prefers to get right down to it. The setlist spans the band's entire history, from "Dissident" to "Do the Evolution"; you'll find biggies like "Jeremy" and "Even Flow," but performances of lesser-known tracks like "Animal" and "Not for You" as just as passionate (some would say even more so). The rest of the band — Mike McCready and Stone Gossard on guitar, Jeff Ament (frequently hatless, for a change), and drummer Matt Cameron — stomp around with good cheer, but it's Vedder who remains the focus, bolstering his powerful vocals by playing guitar and harmonica on occasion, and hoisting a kid on stage to marvel at the spectacle.
Bonus features include three short montages titled "City," "Band," and "Fans," set to unreleased instrumentals culled from the Binaural album sessions. Humorous outtakes from the US tour are set to the song "Smile," and three songs are featured from the "Matt-cam" vantage point — a camera stationed at Cameron's side. Videos of the songs "Oceans" and "Do the Evolution" are also included.
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