Recently, Jay-Z announced that he would be curating the lineup at Budweiser’s Made in America Festival this year, and now his extremely eclectic lineup has been announced. Among the headliners are Pearl Jam, D’Angelo and Skrillex – along with Jay-Z himself, of course.

The Philadelphia festival will be held on September 1 and 2 this year at the city’s Benjamin Franklin Parkway. The event will be one of Pearl Jam’s only American concert dates this year.

Other notable artists include Odd Future, Passion Pit, Santigold, Miike Snow, Afrojack, Calvin Harris, Dirty Projectors, X, Janelle Monae, Rita Ora and Prince Royce.

The first slew of artists announced to the lineup is being called “Phase One,” so we can likely assume that more artists will be announced before the Labor Day Weekend Festival.

At a press conference announcing the event, Jay-Z said he has a few questions he asks himself when he gets involved with a project like this.

“Whenever I enter into a project, I try to hit on some touch points. The first thing is: Is it great?” he said at the press conference, which was held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. “The second one is: Is it gonna push the culture forward.”

Some artists also wanted to make their own announcements about their appearances at the festival.

“We are pleased to announce that Pearl Jam is headlining Made in America Festival curated by Jay-Z,” read a post on Pearl Jam’s website. “Made in America takes place Labor Day Weekend (Saturday, September 1^st – Sunday, September 2^nd) at Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park.”

Prince Royce took to Twitter to announce his excitement.

“Proud to announce that I’ll be performing at #MADEINAMERICA Fest Sept 1-2 Thanks to Jay-Z for having me & for curating this great festival!” he tweeted.

Atlanta’s recently revived Music Midtown festival will this year feature Foo Fighters and Pearl Jam, organizers announced yesterday.

This year’s festival will be held September 21-22 in Piedmont Park in Atlanta. In addition to the headliners each night (Foo Fighters will play September 21 and Pearl Jam will headling September 22), the lineup features a slew of other notable artists. Among these are T.I., the Avett Brothers, Florence & the Machine, Ludacris, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Girl Talk, Civil Twilight and Van Hunt.

Music Midtown was held every year from 1994 until it was discontinued in 2005. The festival returned in limited form last year, and producers want to have a larger event for 2012.

We had to be two days [this year],” Peter Conlon, president of Live Nation Atlanta told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “It’s impossible to do what we need to do in one day – that’s what I learned last year. But we put on last year’s in 90 days, which is pretty hard to do. I’d give us a big A.”

Conlon also spoke about how he wanted future versions of the festival to be even bigger than this year’s, though he doesn’t want it to grow as large as it was during its first incarnation.

“I’d like to grow a little more, maybe three or four stages,” he said, “but we’ll never get up to six stages again. It got unmanageable. We were programming stages for the fact of programming them.”

Another difference between this year and last year is added diversity in the lineup with rap acts like Ludacris and T.I.

“The thing we didn’t have time to do last year was [work on] diversification.” Conlon also told the Atlanta newspaper. “This year we have a very diverse lineup. I also wanted an Atlanta feel because this is an Atlanta festival.”

Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters have been announced as the headliners for the DeLuna Music Festival, which will be held this later this year in Pensacola, Fla.

Much like the Hangout Festival in nearby Gulf Shores, Ala., the festival will be held on the city’s beaches on the Gulf of Mexico. The three day event will be held September 21-23 this year.

In addition to the headliners, the extensive lineup contains a slew of notable artists that will be performing at this year’s festival. Among them are Florence and the Machine, Band of Horses, Ben Folds Five, Guided By Voices, Dwight Yoakam, the Wallflowers, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, the Gaslight Anthem, DJ Jazzy Jeff and Superchunk.

The festival will contain four stages, and two of these are directly on the Pensacola Beach. As the festivals official website puts it, “DeLuna Fest celebrates Pensacola’s rich heritage and raises a toast to America’s original settlement.”

The website also states that Spanish conquistador Don Tristan De Luna and his crew threw a massive party upon arriving on Pensacola Beach in 1559. The DeLuna festival, which was first held in 2010, attempts to revive “America’s original beach party.”

Festival organizer Scott Mitchell recently spoke to The Huntsville Times about the event.

“We hope everybody gets excited about DeLuna Fest 2012,” he said in a video interview. “My fingers are crossed that we’re going to get the kind of thing that everybody can get behind and get excited about.”

He also spoke about how the festival is related to the Hangout Festival in that it is a great event for the Gulf Coast.

“Hangout is a big success,” he continued. “It shows everybody in the region that it can be done. If it can be done on the shores of Alabama, why can’t it be done in Florida?”

“Pearl Jam Twenty” is Cameron Crowe’s documentary taking a look back on Pearl Jam’s 20 years as a band. It features the meteoric rise to fame of one of rock’s greatest bands and how they found the strength to stay together through tough crossroads and defy the odds. With unfettered access to the band, “Pearl Jam Twenty” is a solid biopic that tells the story that is Pearl Jam without glossing over the ugly spots.

The documentary starts at the true beginning. It lays out the Seattle scene and what was brewing in the early-90s to make this the musical hotbed that would ultimately birth the grunge rock movement. One of the film’s greatest assets is its director Cameron Crowe. Getting his start as a music journalist before moving on to write and direct films, Crowe was in the thick of this awakening and even directed the film which would define the Seattle music scene “Singles” in 1992. In “Twenty,” Crowe zeros in on Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard as they are drinking in the music while cobbling together a rock outfit called Mother Love Bone with lead singer Andy Wood. Though Wood had the vocal talents and energy to front the group a drug overdose would quiet the budding voice. Andy’s passing deeply affected Stone and Jeff and almost drove them down separate musical paths. Ament’s playing with Mike McCready brought Gossard back into the frame as the first inkling of Pearl Jam came into focus.

It wasn’t until a demo tape came in from a San Diego-based vocalist Eddie Vedder that the band truly took shape. After being wowed by his voice on “Footsteps,” the band invited him up to Seattle to see if it was going to be a good fit. Six days of non-stop playing resulted in the band performing their first gig as Mookie Blaylock. It seems the basketball player didn’t take too kindly to a bunch of flannel wearing long hairs using his name so they dodged the trademark entanglements to become Pearl Jam.

The band seemed to bond over the personal loss Stone and Jeff had experienced losing Wood and Vedder losing his stepfather and not knowing his real father. The film really takes hold as it unfolds the days of Pearl Jam’s overnight rise to fame. They went from playing dank clubs to fronting huge festivals with their ‘how to handle fame’ handbook getting lost in the mail. This slice of the film focuses on Vedder as the reluctant star and how Kurt Cobain’s unflattering critique of the band would hold them in check. This was by far the most fascinating part of the film.

The film succeeds in telling the story of the band, but its shortcomings show its head in not digging deeper. The Roskilde Festival tragedy, where 9 fans were killed in Denmark, was marked as a significant turning point for the band, but the mechanics of that turning point were left unexplored. Also the band’s very public bout with Ticketmaster was a struggle, scheduling a tour outside of Ticketmaster-run venues. What was the underlying push that caused them to stand up to the behemoth? What did they think when the music universe applauded their fledgling efforts yet none of their contemporaries stepped up to join the fight?

The biggest omission of the film seems to be the utter lack of detail given to the band’s journey over the last 10 years. Yes the band’s star has dimmed and they aren’t reluctantly bathing in the limelight like in their heyday, but its important to tell the story of the band as it ages and matures. We need to see their continued evolution to get the complete picture of Pearl Jam as they stand at this twenty year anniversary.

Overall “Pearl Jam Twenty” was a solid piece of film made by the perfect orator to tell this story. Crowe had interviews with all of the band members as well as Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell. Standing as a snapshot of the band, the film is very informative and an interesting take. I just wish Crowe would have pulled back the lid and found some answers to the deeper questions that define the band. Chalk it up to missed opportunities in an otherwise very compelling film.

After spending all year celebrating the 20^th anniversary of their debut album, Ten, Pearl Jam have announced their first shows of 2012, which will take place next summer in Europe. The nine-date trek will include three festivals and six headlining dates on their own. The three festivals are Isle of Wight in England, Rock Werchter in Belgium and the Main Square Festival in France. Additionally, they will tackle arena shows in Manchester, Amsterdam, Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo and Copenhagen. Los Angeles rock band X will open all of the arena shows. The first show, in Manchester, will take place on June 20, and the tour will culminate in Copenhagen on July 10.

Pearl Jam started the 20-year anniversary celebration for Ten back in 2009 by releasing a deluxe edition of the album that had been remastered and included a DVD. In September, Pearl Jam Twenty was released, which is a rockumentary about the band directed by Cameron Crowe. The movie documents the history of the band from its formation until April 2011. Crowe edited over 12,000 hours of video for the documentary. The film was screened at the Toronto Film Festival and other U.S. theaters throughout September, and was released on DVD and Blu-Ray the following month.

Pearl Jam formed in Seattle in 1990 and helped bring grunge rock into the mainstream, along with other bands mainly from the northwest like Nirvana and Soundgarden. Ten is the band’s most commercially successful album and has sold over 10 million copies. Sales were slow when the album was released in August of 1991, almost exactly a month before Nevermind by Nirvana was released. It took nearly a year to break into the top 10 of the Billboard 200 album chart, and peaked at number two in May 1992, kept out of the top spot only by the Billy Ray Cyrus album containing the hit “Achy Breaky Heart.”

Following months of breathless anticipation, Pearl Jam has announced details for their upcoming 20th anniversary concert. The band will be headlining and hosting a festival over Labor Day weekend in East Troy, Wisconsin at the Alpine Valley Music Theatre. Special guests include John Doe from X, Glen Hansard, Liam Finn, Joseph Arthur, Mudhoney, Queens of the Stone Age and The Strokes. Fan club members will be able to purchase tickets starting May 23, and the general public on June 4. Pearl Jam is donating $2 per ticket sold to the band’s Vitalogy Foundation. The organizations provide grants to nonprofit organizations that are selected by band members.

The band, following their anniversary festival, will be hitting the road to tour Canada. The outing will consist of arena gigs and visit most of Canada’s major cities. The trek will kick off on September 7 in Montreal at Bell Centre and wrap up on September 25 at Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

The anniversary celebration of Pearl Jam’s, as was previously announced will include “Pearl Jam Twenty,” the retrospective documentary by Cameron Crowe. It is scheduled to arrive along with a Simon & Schuster published book as well as soundtrack album that will feature music from the film selected by Crowe. The movie “Pearl Jam Twenty” will air on October 21 on PBS stations as part of their American Masters series.

In an interview with Billboard, Jeff Ament, bassist for the band, said that Pearl Jam will begin working on a new album in early spring. He also said that 25 demos have already been recorded and the group will come together in the near future.

Ament stated, “We did a whole bunch of demos and everybody’s got a disc of 25 [songs] right now. April will be the time where we get together and learn to play all these demos and figure out which 12 to 15 of them float to the top. Hopefully we can get something done this year.”

2011 marks the 20th anniversary of ‘Ten’ the band’s album that came out in 1991. There will be a documentary directed by Cameron Crow, a festival, and a book. However, Ament indicated that the group is eagerly anticipating what is still to come.

He said, “There’s been so much focus on the past that I think all of us are really excited to make a new record. And have something to look forward to because we’ve been digging in the boxes in our basement a lot the last year or so.”

The most recent album released by the group was ‘Backspacer’ which dropped in 2009.

As iconic metal rockers Pearl Jam continues to bask in its monumental 20th anniversary, a feat that most rock bands of today can only dream of achieving, Eddie Vedder and the rest of the band are planning to stage their very own music festival, according to an announcement made by the band’s manager Kelly Curtis via the band’s own radio station, Sirius XM Radio.

When asked when and where the festival will kick off, Curtis tells that the target date is summer of next year with a launching point at “somewhere in the middle of the US” and not in Seattle, contrary to what Pearl Jam fans might expect as it is the band’s home turf.

Meanwhile, the band is also prepping for the release of “Live on Ten Legs”, which includes 18 of the band’s greatest live performances from 2003 to 2010.  “Ten Legs” follows up the band’s first live release, 1998’s  “Live on Two Legs”, recorded from the band’s 1998 summer tour.

On the other hand, band vocalist Eddie Vedder will be heading down south in Australia in 2011 for a series of solo gigs in spring.  The band is also planning to reissue some of its previous releases although no word yet if the plan will push through.

On Saturday Eddie Vedder, Pearl Jam frontman, married model Jill McCormick, his longtime girlfriend and mother of the couple’s two children, in Hawaii.

Musician Jack Johnson and actor Sean Penn were two of the 70 guests.

On December 4 Vedder asked McCormick to marry him while in Washington.  He performed later that weekend at an event at Kennedy Center to honor Bruce Springsteen.

It is the second marriage for Vedder and first for McCormick.  The couple has two daughters: Olivia, who is six years old, and Harper, who on Friday will be two years old.

The Spectrum, a concert arena in Southern Philadelphia, is home to some of the greatest rock performances in history.  Sure, it doesn’t have state of the art audiovisual facilities or the comfort of differing levels of seating like most modern arenas would have, in fact, it is just waiting for its time to come crashing down only to pave the way for a larger and more commercially sized-up establishment.

Yet, The Spectrum had something that no other concert venue had.  It is the spirit, the energy, the dynamism and the warmth of the audience even before the first note has been played that makes rock legends like Bruce Springsteen, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple or Pearl Jam to name a few, perform over a multitude of times.  Unlike audiences from other music loving cities like New York which have become so jaded, Philly audiences will show their love for whoever’s performing even with just their mere presence on stage.

All these memories became more profound than ever when Pearl Jam released “2009 Philadelphia”, a CD box set which showcases their four night-live performances in October last year which also marked the last concert to be staged at The Spectrum.  The band played a total of 103 songs dug from their entire discography, to their own versions of classics from Neil Young, The Who, Devo and the Dead Boys, and even a 40-track Halloween themed set which had guitarists Mike McCready and Stone Gossard blasting the Pearl Jam classic “Better Man” with lyrics from the English Beat hit “Save it for Later”.

The album reminds me of Deep Purple’s  “Fireball” album tour in 1971 with The Faces and Matthews Southern Comfort – without Iain Matthews.  Purple performed an extensively lengthy version of “Mandrake Root” while The Faces was in its prime, all in their blues rock glory and without the divisiveness brought upon by Rod Stewart’s one-man career taking flight.  Two years after, The Who brought their “Quadrophenia” slate and the same gig also saw the beginnings of Lynyrd Skynyrd and one of the earliest live versions of “Free Bird”.

Another remarkable performance took place three years later in the spring, this time with The Kinks who brought the house down with the “Preservation”, King Crimson sampling brand new material from their freshly released “Starless and Bible Black” prog-rock anthology and Peter Frampton who brought his eponymous “Camel” to jam with him at The Spectrum.

In the summer of 1975, Mick Jagger and the rest of The Rolling Stones also made its way in the Southern Philly venue which also marks one of the first performances that featured the band’s then new guitarist Ronnie Wood, who after playing for The Face will eventually take the place of Stones’ Mick Taylor.  And for a change, funky soul group The Commodores also graced the stage with their bouncy track “Brick House”.  This was the time when tickets were so cheap, a seat in the near front row costs barely $20 and there was no such thing as extra charges or fees.

1976 was a big year for The Spectrum with newcomers Boston opening up for Brits Foghat who were known for their funky boogie music style.  However, that night was remarkable not for the performances but because majority of the concert goers went home after Boston’s “More than a Feeling” with only about half of the crowd left for Foghat’s show.  Still in the same year, performances were back in the up and up when Ted Nugent, the Blue Oyster Cult and best of all, ZZ Top performed to a sold-out crowd even when two other events were being staged at the Veterans Stadium and at the John F. Kennedy Stadium.

The latter part of the decade saw some of the greatest acts in rock music performing in the concrete Philly stage.  Bruce Springsteen for two years, 1976 and 1978, Pink Floyd minus Roger Waters who called in sick on that one fateful night in 1977, Aerosmith during their healthiest, cleanest and finest years, and Electric Light Orchestra who hit The Spectrum more than just once.

For what it’s worth, Pearl Jam’s  “2009 Philadelphia” teaches us that rock music will continue to transcend ages, stadium innovations, sound improvements, sky rocketing ticket prices and an ever changing public taste and perception.  Rock, especially, live rock jams in massive stadiums and arenas will continue to be embraced by music junkies, aged six to eighty-six, everywhere.