Last night - July 2, 2011 - was the first time Sound Garden played a show in 15 years or so. And I was there. And I saw that it was good. It was an outside venue and rain clouds built up before the show. They opened with Black Rain - questionable opener but somehow appropriate. Then once they got into Spoon Man everyone knew that Sound Garden was back. The played everything I wanted to hear except Pretty Noose but that's okay. Fell on Black Days, Outshined, Burden in my Hand and Blow up the Outside were all there. And then the lightning started. CN tower kept getting smacked in the back drop and lightning danced all over the skies all night without any interupting thunder. The god of rock was showing acceptance for this event.
Coheed and Cambria opened up but weren't all that impressive. I had hoped for more. Their sound just wasn't meshing together well. You can blame the sound guys for that one but I've noticed that one big difference between great experienced bands and not so much ones is the sound quality. Sound Garden made slight adjustments after the first song but from there it was perfect. And the range of Chris Cornells vocals live was just huge and awesome - Coheeds vocalist (who shall remain nameless until I know it) just was no comparison. They weren't terrible by any means but just fell into the average whatever side of performances. But Chris Cornell truly is one of the great vocalists in rock history. No doubt at all. And he brought his son with him who couldn't have been more than 6... and he sat on the side of the stage playing air drums all night. Good times.
It was also an aging crowd. Alot of 90'd rockers and very few teenagers. Youth these days... with their emo. Just don't know. But I've saved the greatest part for last. During Black Hole Sun (which sounded fantastic live. It was never a favourite of mine but was so good live) a saw a woman with Downs Syndrome, probably in her late 50's, head banging with a cigarette in her mouth and an over sized Sound Garden shirt on. She is rock and roll. And she knows it.
that sounds awesome!
ReplyDeleteI like coheed and cambria a bit... but dont know any sound garden. But it sounds like a sweet time.
Saren, I thinks its pretty crazy that you dont know Saound Garden but i guess it makes sense.
ReplyDeleteAnd on a side note about the woman with downs; i did not like that she was smoking but thats not what I was going to comment about. When Tommy was born and I was doing some research about his diagnosis I read that it's actually not
Down(s) Syndrome, it's just Down Syndrome, named after Dr Down who first described the characteristics for those individuals with the extra 21st chromosone, because he did not have it himself nor did he own it :)
And I'm not saying this to make you feel bad, I just thought i'd take the opportunity to share the information because I thought it was interesting and I think most people don't know that. I know I certainly didnt before:)
I think I've heard that it's Down and not Downs but it just so habit to say Downs cause everyone does. Or just shorten it to "Downs".
ReplyDeleteAnd the smoking part isn't cool but I just thought it was cool seeing how much she was into it and enjoying it while looking like such a classic rock image. (And without the Down Syndrome I never would've noticed - it was the catalyst for my commenting)
man i dont listen to that kind of music, and im guessing they are 90's so i was super young ya know?
ReplyDeleteAll i remember about Sound Garden is that Neal had a T-shirt with sound garden on it that he wore alot.
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