Thursday, August 29, 2024

Retro Video of the Week: "Even Flow" by Pearl Jam

Tonight I'll be seeing Pearl Jam at Wrigley Field, so this week's Retro Video of the Week is the video for "Even Flow," which is obviously one of the band's most iconic songs.  It was the band's second single released off of their debut album Ten -- and two days ago was the 32nd anniversary of the release of the album.  The band had filmed a previous version of a video for the song, but they didn't like how it turned out, so they scrapped it and decided to do a concert footage video instead.  

Filmed at Moore Theatre in Seattle in January 1992, the uncensored version starts out with Eddie Vedder telling the director of the video Josh Taft (who was also a friend of the band), "This is not a TV studio, Josh! Turn those lights out, it's a fucking rock concert!"  The footage in the video itself is not just from the band's performance of "Even Flow" that night, as you can see from guys in the band playing different guitars and Vedder wearing a hat at one point and not during others.  But that matters not.  The exposure on MTV helped break the band, and by the end of May 1992, Ten was in the Top 10 on the Billboard album chart, helping usher in the grunge era.  Enjoy the footage of a band on the precipice of stardom.

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