An Early Review of the Pearl Jam Movie

The Pearl Jam Movie

It’s tougher to stay alive. Anyone can die, retire, the challenge is to keep on keepin’ on, with no compass, no rule book, knowing that everything you do thereafter could tarnish your legacy, kill your career. John Lennon, Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain were great artists, but if they were alive today, we’d see them differently.

Then there are those who never make it that far. Like Andy Wood.

You might be familiar with "Chloe Dancer/Crown Of Thorns" off the "Singles" soundtrack, but watching this movie Andy suddenly becomes three-dimensional, he lives. And we can see his pure desire to be a rock star, looking more like Michael Monroe than Eddie Vedder, having more in common with Bon Scott than anybody from Seattle. He was flash, he was performance, he got close but he got derailed by drugs. The best of us are damaged, and so was Andy Wood. There was something unknowable about him, that led to his demise. And when he OD’ed, it looked like opportunity had been snatched from Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament when they could finally smell it, when they were finally ready to prove themselves.

Read the rest Bob's review here.

As for Mike McCready…he went to L.A. Paid to play at the Roxy to five people on a dead December night. And after parting with the $700 fee, he turned tail and went back to Seattle and gave up.