Soundgarden

Image

Nine Inch Nails/Soundgarden 8/21/14

Soundgarden-NIN14

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

 

Soundgarden 7/23/11

Soundgarden 11

On April 9, 1997 Soundgarden announced they were disbanding. I felt super lucky to have been able to see them just the summer before this break up. Time warp with me to 2011 and Soundgarden announced that “school is back in session” and the band was going on tour for the month of July. When that was announced it was not a matter of if I was going to go see them, it was only a matter of where. Bob and I decided The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas would be the where in the form of a road trip with our significant others Ingrid and Jasmine. It would still be over a year from this point that the band would release the comeback album King Animal.

After spending Friday at the pool and Friday night at Dick’s Last Resort where Jasmine had a hookup we were all feeling pretty capital on Saturday, especially since it was over 100 degrees outside. After an early dinner Jasmine was DONE so retired back to her room, Ingrid decided to go out on her own and Bob and I hopped into a cab to get to the show. It was in said cab that we split up and ate the bag of mushrooms we brought with us. We were scared to each eat half the eighth because there were so many caps & stems but onward and upward.

The Joint reminded me a lot of House of Blues but it was a little bigger. We got general admission tickets and stood in the middle of the floor section the whole time. Surprisingly it was actually not very dense down there. This opened the door for some annoying drunk guy to keep bugging us when we could barely talk. We were ignoring him but he was not getting the hint. The next thing you know he totally redeemed himself when he disappeared, came back with two beers for us and then disappeared again for good.

Soundgarden ripped. It was a little different seeing them at their own show versus having a non-headlining slot on Lollapalooza. They set the tone early by opening with “Searching With My Good Eye Closed” in front of a giant backdrop of the Badmotorfinger album cover. Kim Thayil’s Guild guitar was literally snarling on “Gun” and “Beyond the Wheel,” Chris’ voice sounded fucking incredible and Matt and Ben held down some furious rhythms. One might argue that it was the shrooms, but Chris Cornell’s long hair and long beard left me feeling like we just saw Jesus play a show.

Our night and the “trip” was far from over after the final notes of “Slaves & Bulldozers.” My first indication was when we spilled out into the casino and the floors appeared as if they were “rolling” beneath us. Bless Ingrid for cabbing it to the Hard Rock to help us out. The three of us got into a cab and my fits of laughter were too contagious for the cabbie to resist laughing right along with me. We had him drop us off at the AM/PM across the street from the Excalibur where we were staying. I was too effed to go into the store to buy beer so I waited outside. As I did an SUV full of possible prostitutes pulled up and said “Heyyyyyyyy. You wanna party?” Hell no. Beer in hand we walked across the street and found three giant rocks amongst astroturf near an Excalibur sign that we decided would be a perfect spot to drink. We seemed to be there for hours and drank all the beer. During this time we made friends with an Iron Maiden loving guy who had been quarreling loudly with his girlfriend only moments earlier. He left and in his place a drunken Irishman appeared. He loved our rock ways and said “I have to go to my room to get my whiskey. Don’t leave. I’ll be right back.” That was fine and dandy except after he left a security guard for Excalibur showed up on a bicycle and informed us the party was over…after we had already been there for hours…but what do I know? I was under the influence of mushrooms and Bud Light.

The next day we caught a movie to try to avoid some of the traffic but it did not matter. Driving back from Vegas is always hell. You feel like shit from drinking and not getting enough sleep and to top it off most of the way back is two lanes of asshole drivers that will cut you off if you do not ride the ass of the car in front of you. Getting to Vegas from San Diego is about a four and a half hour drive on a good day. The way back is always longer but this particular time took over 10 hours! It was at that moment I vowed to never drive to Vegas again. I reasoned that if I did not have enough money to fly then I probably did not have any business being there anyway. Despite the hellacious car ride home it was worth every minute to get to see Soundgarden again.

SETLIST: Searching With My Good Eye Closed, Spoonman, Gun, Jesus Christ Pose, Blow Up the Outside World, The Day I Tried to Live, My Wave, Pretty Noose, Fell on Black Days, Ugly Truth, Big Dumb Sex, Loud Love, Outshined, Rusty Cage, Black Rain, Black Hole Sun, Head Down, Burden in My Hand, Superunknown, 4th of July, Beyond the Wheel, Hands All Over, Slaves & Bulldozers

Lollapalooza 7/30/96

sc0000ba6b03

My uncle Darryl informed me one week before graduation that I would have to move out. I ended up moving in with Jack, my best friend at the time, because he was also in a situation with nowhere to live. I started working full time at Super Lube and he got a job at the local car wash. We moved in and quickly realized we didn’t have any furnishings. With a little help from a lot of people we were set up. A lot of debauchery went down at that townhouse because for the first time our group of friends had somewhere proper to party. Before this we partied a lot of at different outdoor locations or house parties, but those weren’t the norm. That summer was the first time I ever took LSD and I took it frequently. I was curious about it long before I did it and read everything I could get my hands on pertaining to it. It didn’t help that my friend Ross lived with a drug dealer and gave me about 100 hits to sell. I’m no drug dealer so what ended up happening was my friends and I would get bored with nothing to do so we did it. I never took more than 2 hits at a time because I had heard about people who took too much and thought they were an orange and everyone was trying to peel them, etc. That summer was also the only time I have ever smoked Opium, the first time I had Hash and there were plenty of Mushroom trips as well. I know this sounds really bad but I never strayed so far from myself that I couldn’t come back and I always made it to work and paid my bills as well. I viewed these experiences as mind expanding and still do. I learned many important life lessons that summer.

Anyways Lollapalooza’s lineup this year included Devo, The Ramones, Screaming Trees, Soundgarden and the almighty Metallica, all of whom I had never seen. I am not really a Devo fan but it was comical to see them all dressed in yellow pleather with silly hats. I am also not a big Ramones fan but I do appreciate their place in Rock N’ Roll and feel lucky to have seen them one week before their last performance ever. The real draws for me were Soundgarden and Metallica. I became a Soundgarden fan after hearing “Outshined.” I borrowed the Badmotorfinger album from my friend Claude and must have played it about a thousand times. I remember they opened with “Spoonman.” They had just released Down on the Upside a couple months before this show but aside from “Pretty Noose” and “Ty Cobb” their setlist was compiled from Badmotorfinger and Superunknown, with the exception of a cover of “Waiting for the Sun” by the Doors as the sun was setting behind them. Amazing. Chris Cornell played “Black Hole Sun” by himself acoustically, which was also pretty amazing. Ben looked pretty pissed off the whole time. The set came to a close with a fierce version of “Jesus Christ Pose.” This is another band I feel very lucky to have seen because they broke up less than a year later. I was blown away and I still had Metallica to look forward to. I had been turned onto them with the album …And Justice for All by my friend John. That is still my favorite Metallica album. After getting into that one I bought every Metallica album in existence. On this tour they were promoting Load, which had just come out less than a few months prior. I don’t remember them playing much if anything from this album. I do remember them rocking my ass off with all the classics.