As soon as Soundgarden announced a co-headlining tour with Nine Inch Nails it was not a matter of if I was going to see it, it was a matter of when, where and with who. Joe was quick to call me after the announcement and suggest we go to one of the dates together, which was super cool since I had not seen him for a little while. Even better he suggested coming down to San Diego and bringing Claude along for the ride as well.
After much anticipation the day finally came and we of course took it upon ourselves to start drinking beer fairly early in the afternoon. I decided to have an Uber SUV pick us up and then go pick up Bob and Ken separately on the way, which ended up being about $100 since the amphitheater is way down in Chula Vista. We got our money’s worth by drinking the entire way and taking over the stereo to blast Pantera at full volume. The poor Uber driver did not strike me as a Pantera fan and could not wait to get us out of his ride. Once we got dropped off we met up with Tom and had more beer in the parking lot. Add double fisting free tall boys courtesy of Tom’s friend Manny to the equation once we got inside the amphitheater and it’s a wonder any of us remember anything. There are certain friends that tend to feed off of each other and push drinking to the extreme and these were those friends.
This was the third time I had the pleasure of seeing Soundgarden. Unfortunately Matt Cameron bowed out of the tour due to prior commitments with Pearl Jam but whoever they had fill in got the job done. Surprisingly they only played one song from King Animal despite that being their newest album. Most of the songs they played were from Badmotorfinger and Superunknown and I later realized that this tour happened to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Superunknown.
SETLIST: Searching With My Good Eye Closed, Spoonman, Flower, Outshined, Jesus Christ Pose, Black Hole Sun, The Day I Tried to Live, My Wave, Blow Up the Outside World, Fell on Black Days, A Thousand Days Before, Rusty Cage, Beyond the Wheel
Nine Inch Nails was touring for the album Hesitation Marks that had been out for almost exactly a year to the day and I had not seen them in a little more than five years. It was fitting that Robin Finck aka “Lizard Man” was back with the band because of the experience I had with these same people at the Gorge. He certainly adds another level to the show with his badassery. Nine Inch Nails shows are sensory overload and this show was no exception. I found this setlist online but I swear they played “Reptile.”
SETLIST: Copy of A, Sanctified, Came Back Haunted, 1,000,000, March of the Pigs, Piggy, Terrible Lie, Closer, Gave Up, Disappointed, Find My Way, The Great Destroyer, Eraser, Wish, The Hand That Feeds, Head Like a Hole, Hurt
