Water on the Road (2011) Online

Eddie Vedder is the lead vocalist and one of the three guitarists of Peal Jam. He is known largely for his powerful baritone vocals, although this live music video showcases every reason why Eddie Vedder is my personal favourite musician. By the way, he became my favourite only after I watched this film. Released on DVD and Blu-ray in 2011, Water on the Road was recorded on August 16th and 17th, 2008 at Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C. It documents Vedder's 2008 solo tour. There are 24 tracks including Pearl Jam songs, covers, and solo works from Vedder's Into the Wild (2007) soundtrack and his Ukulele Songs (2011) CD.

Most of the film is Vedder playing solo. In my opinion, Vedder should always play solo, because he has the vocals and guitar playing to really stand out. This film convinced me that he is underrated as a guitar player. Some of the strumming patterns are difficult to copy and I think it's impressive when he gives 100% into the vocals while playing interesting guitar rhythm and solos at the same time. I have the songs on my iPod and I've listened to many of them over 100 times each and I also learnt about half of them for acoustic guitar.

Each song has its own swagger. He plays primarily an awesome sounding Martin acoustic guitar, but also an electric Fender Telecaster, mandolin, ukulele, foot pedals, and a stomp box. A few of the songs have an accompanying musician (always different), and all of these also worked well.

My favourite songs were Society, Guaranteed, Far Behind, Rise, and Hard Sun which were different, and arguably better versions than the Into the Wild soundtrack. Golden State, Forever Young, Driftin', and No More are other awesome songs. There are also two bonus track covers which are Blackbird and All Along the Watchtower, both of which are also great.

The order of the songs worked well. In general, many of the songs are what I'd call chilling, campfire type songs. There are no raunchy, high tempo rock solos, like Pearl Jam sometimes does, but rather the focus is on excellent (usually acoustic) sound and vocals. To keep things interesting, Vedder breaks up the video between some songs with stories and occasionally funny anecdotes. He's not a great public speaker or comedian (in this film at least), but I didn't mind these breaks either.

Another thing I liked was how cool Vedder is in general. He wears a simple shirt and has the long hair. The business casual look fits the music and personality. He also seems to like surfing, paddle boarding, and Hawaii, because there are clips of those as well, which is cool. Personally, I think Vedder has gotten better with age (he's 51 in 2016). He used to stage dive and crowd surf, but in this film created exceptional solo music focused on great acoustic sound.

Personally, I hate music videos and much prefer live videos that film the music artists and their instruments in live performances, which is what this film does. The camera is mostly focused on Vedder and sometimes his guitar. The lighting is great, although I would have preferred the camera to focus a bit more on his guitar rather than his face and body, although it's mostly so it would be easier for me to learn these great songs.

I highly recommend purchasing or at least watching this film, especially if you like Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam, rock music, folk music, acoustic guitar, solo performances of multi-instrumentalists, and/or live music videos. This is a seriously under-appreciated gem. As of today (Feb. 3, 2016), it has an average rating of 8.5 with only 71 ratings, which tells me other people like it but not many people know about it. If you're not sure you'd like it, you can watch most of the individual songs from the film on YouTube. Additionally, I recommend watching Into the Wild, because it is a great movie and its soundtrack is part of this video, but a different version.

I wish Eddie would do more solo albums, tours, and videos, because I think that is when he is truly at his best and most memorable. Although he's much more well known as a member of Pearl Jam, he shines as a solo artist, similar to say a Chris Cornell or Xavier Rudd type musician.