One of our strongest assets at TSIS is our community. Our Red Mosquito Forum can discuss Pearl Jam minutia until most people have been reduced to tears. Drawing from that strength, we hope to feature a few fan reviews. Today's review by Tuolumne is our first.
Saw the movie this weekend and am glad I saw this on a big screen, Clinch really captured the feeling of being in the pit in front of the band. You can hear the crowd sing right along and it accomplishes the feeling of being at a show moreso than their other video releases. I also think we're very fortunate artists like Clinch or Cameron Crowe find this band worthwhile enough to want to put their own spin on them or give their take on their feelings about the band. It's territory most artists never get to - where others are giving their interpretation of what they do. And I certainly can't think of any other doc that does this baseball spin Clinch gives it. Overall, it makes sense - tying together hope and devotion and improbable outcomes and fan communities. In that sense it works, although it's always a stretch tying in concerts to baseball.
Clinch managed to give it a really good authentic shot and this film certainly has a great reason to exist. And man, you can tell Clinch poured his heart into this. There's these little details, like when Ed does one of his mic stand leans and looks at the crowd upside down - and Clinch actually shows a shot of the crowd upside down to mimic what Ed's seeing. There's tons of little clips he splices that show how much heart he put into this project. That little detail sort of clinched (pun intended) that this dude was really going for something, and some of his sinouttes gave me the chills, and some of them didn't.
Does it capture the concerts themselves? These are the greatest shows I've ever been to, and not even a full bootleg or Youtube video truly does justice what a moving experience these shows were. But I sure as hell got a really cool keepsake of that weekend, and it reminds me of something I do not ever want to forget.
For shows that were just chalk full of one highlight after another: The intro to Sad and the performance of it, Masters of War, Let Me Sleep, Throw Your Arms Around Me, Footsteps, Immortality, I Got Shit, and on and on, the one thing I was really disappointed Clinch didn't include was the fuckin WAVE we did on the first night as Ed and Jeff were about to start into Bee Girl. That was about as much of a **baseball** moment you could ever hope for during a concert, and Clinch didn't include it? It would have totally made sense!
All said, believe it or not us TenClubber types aren't the only consumers of this band, and there's alot about this film which I think is appealing to outsiders of the band, especially given the setlist selection. Lucky for me, I'm a baseball fan and was an especially obsessive one as a child, so I kinda get it even though I'm not a Cubs fan.
