Seattle Subsonic

Video from Pearl Jam’s Past, Available Now

November 12th, 2008

Like most Americans, this band is smiling after last week’s election results.
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Though they had the best of intentions in making a tour film with rock band Pearl Jam, the best efforts of part-time movie-makers (and full-time skaters) Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski were hidden from fans until just last month. Invited to accompany the rock band on a few dates of its domestic Vote for Change tour in the weeks before the ill-fated 2004 presidential election, the duo used their Super 8 to document their travels and have released it as a perhaps ironically-titled “Vote for Change? 2004“. Much more than a concert film, this documentary features interviews and monologues of regular ol’ ‘Murricans, most of whom were pretty hacked off about the state of American politics, circa September 2004. The band members get a few minutes of time on the soapbox, too. As expected, armchair politics lean just left of center but the rants are kept in check. The film is successful because it’s primarily about live concert footage.
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The tour, and the movie, kicks off at the Ed Sullivan Theater on The Late Show, where the band performs a powerful, rearranged version of Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War.” I can’t be entirely sure, but I tend to think the track of the audience accompaniment was dubbed in from a different show. It seems unlikely that the band handpicked 400 people who knew the words of the song and promised to sing along for that taping… In keeping with this theme, other politically-charged covers are featured, including The Avengers’ “American In Me”, “I am a Patriot” by Steven Van Zandt, CCR’s “Fortunate Son”, and unique version of “All Along the Watchtower” with none other than Neil “I’ll solo with only two notes” Young himself. The show rocks, and was mixed by longtime PJ collaborator Brett Eliason, so it also sounds great. Stream it through the YouTubes or in a player on the PJ website. I chose the latter, and each chapter queued up sequentially (hey! no advertisements!) and played flawlessly.