Pearl Jam - Touring Band 2000
Imagine you've been given acarte blanchepass to follow Pearl  Jam on their2000 North American  tour. Now take 28 songs performed in 19 different cities (with the band's  hometown, Seattle, getting the lion's share of five songs), and capture them for  posterity, courtesy of three PJ crewmembers, who formed a kamikaze documentary  unit with handheld video cameras. In the words of frontman Eddie Vedder (whose  liner notes are dated February 14, 2001), this three-hour DVD is "in some ways  the visual equivalent of the bootlegs that have been released in the past  year... a basic document of what may occur at any given Pearl Jam concert."  Well, it's all that and more. The gritty, homespun approach is totally  appropriate for the band's no-frills performance of straightforward, superlative  rock & roll, and the sound recording is nothing less than spectacular,  especially if you honor Vedder's request to "PLEASE PLAY THIS MOVIE LOUD."Singling out highlights is like trying to pick a favorite child; every viewer  will have favorites, and every choice is justified. The death of grunge is Pearl  Jam's blessing. Having proven its endurance, the band flourishes in the absence  of overexposure. Everyone's in peak form (we like the beard, Eddie), and the  DVD's bonus features are both fun and substantial, including city, band, and fan  montages from PJ's earlier European tour, Todd McFarlane's outstanding animated  "Do the Evolution" video, and three songs featuring "Matt Cam," fixed on drummer  Matt Cameron, with percussion mixed louder on the Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.  The only possible complaint is the absence of interviews or backstage footage,  but that's a trivial quibble. It's the music that matters, and as an audiovisual  record of PJ's 2000 tour, this DVD was created with all the right priorities.--Jeff Shannon