Moviemaker Cameron Crowe had an awkward moment when he sat down to make Pearl Jam's 20th anniversary retrospective - he had to interview Eddie Vedder about a regrettable concert they performed at the launch party for his film Singles.
Crowe, a longtime friend of the band, filmed the concert and couldn't believe what he was seeing - because it was one of Pearl Jam's worst performances.
The footage makes it into new documentary Pearl Jam Twenty and Crowe felt he had to speak to Vedder on camera about his drunken party show.
The Almost Famous director tells WENN, "We had a promotional party for the movie Singles and the only way the studio would release the movie was if we had a promotional party where Pearl Jam and Screaming Trees and Alice in Chains play.
"This ended up happening at the time when Pearl Jam was at their huge first peak, and the band came and they played this promotional party. It was a new experience for me because they had all not been like this. Eddie got drunk, very drunk. They had, like, friends that were along and partying. The show was a disaster. People were streaming for the exits. Fights were breaking out. The music was basically unairable.
"Eddie was saying, 'F**k MTV. This stage is slick like Hollywood.' I remember we were watching this footage in the editing room going, 'Oh, my God. This is like when the Rolling Stones played Altamont. Thank God nobody died.' It was just, in retrospect, perfectly hideous.
"I never spoke to Eddie about it until we did the interview for the documentary. It was an elephant in the room until we did the interview. And there’s a point where I bring up the Singles party, and the air in the room gets a little thick, 20 years later. It was cringe worthy for sure."