The homies at Cinematical lead us to this new Pearl Jam video directed by one Cameron Crowe that we wrote about in advance a few months ago. Maybe you know him, he wrote “Fast Times At Ridgemont High,” directed “Almost Famous” and is married to Nancy Wilson of Heart? Yeah that guy. So you’re automatically thinking, “OMG, Cameron Crowe hasn’t really directed any music videos that weren’t chock full of his film footage so this is sure to be awesome!” WRONG!
Sorry kids, it’s a live performance video filmed in Seattle’s Shadowbox Theater. A lively performance set to a pretty catchy new Pearl Jam song, certainly, but at the end of the song it’s still just your every day live performance. That’s not entirely out of step for Pearl Jam’s video aesthetic — they started their career in the early ’90s with live videos for “Evenflow” and “Alive” and haven’t been too busy with the video production since the amazing “Jeremy.” They got all pissed off at MTV for reasons no one can remember or care and abandoned the format.
In fact, this video probably wouldn’t have even come to be if they hadn’t been working with Crowe to film this performance for a Target commercial. All turned out well and some smarty at their record label talked them into making a full music video out of it, since they had the footage anyway. And here we are, partying like it’s the 1990’s all over again – when Crowe and Pearl Jam were at the top of their game.
You can check out Pearl Jam’s newest album when it comes out on 9/20 and Crowe seems to be working on an untitled Pearl Jam documentary due out in 2011. Expect more live shit!
Nice song. There is something reassuring knowing that Pearl Jam are still around, ripping things up just like the did back in the early 1990s.