While most bands issue a greatest-hits compilation for their twentieth anniversary, Pearl Jam put together a coffee-table book, a documentary helmed by Cameron Crowe and a two-day festival. (Okay, they issued a CD too.) Set at Alpine Valley over Labor Day weekend, Vedder and crew invited their best pals (Queens of the Stone Age, the Strokes, Mudhoney) to open each day while PJ played more than two hours of rarities and fan favorites each night. Best moment? Guest star Chris Cornell joining the band for the era-defining Temple of the Dog number “Hunger Strike.” If only Jared Leto and Claire Danes could have been there, the crowds could have been the first to experience time travel.
