Soundgarden gig in London
A fucking excellent night in Brixton this evening, seeing world-renown grunge music legends Soundgarden tour after last year's first new album since they reformed after 15 years. I've been a fan of Soundgarden since my early teenage years - hell, I pretty much grew up to them - and heard about their short European tour nearly by accident, only able to get tickets nearly at the last second. They were just fantastic, and I'm still in a happy buzz some time after getting home tonight. :)
The gig was at The Brixton Academy, in the middle of Brixton just south of the Thames, and was a simple 5min walk from the tube. Despite it being the virtual centre of modern music in central London, I'd actually never been to the Brixton Academy before, but it wasn't hard to find, with its Art Deco entrance. The queue was right around the block when I arrived just before 1900hrs, but the doors opened just after and the queue moved fairly quickly, so I was inside and got a good spot on the floor completely at random, just right of the centre quite close to the stage, leaning against a rail that was some distance from the mosh pit right at the front (I'm just too old for those things these days!) with a pint of Guinness as company. A Swedish hard-rock band called Graveyard opened for them at 2000hrs and played for 30min (I'd call them a heavier and more energetic version of the Black Keys), before Soundgarden walked out on stage bang on 2100hrs; they were, naturally, wonderful.
Chris Cornell was his energetic best, jumping around from time to time, taking the time to talk to the audience and introduce songs - even lean down and squint to read some of the posters other fans had made - suggesting for us to clap along, and wailing at his absolute best. The rest of the band were also brilliant: Kim Thayil on lead guitar letting his instrument doing most of the talking with the occasional grin (with a nice hat, by the way); Ben Shepherd on bass pulling faces every now and then at other band members and the audience on occasion, and throwing the occasional cup of water into the dancing audience; and Matt Cameron on drums, easily keeping Soundgarden's unusual time signatures (he was the reason I elected to be a drummer in early high school). It was also apparently the last show in their European tour, so whether or not Cornell's relaxed and friendly attitude (and Shepherd's quirkiness) was due to that I've no idea. Still loved it all.
Despite having released a new album last year, they played a wide selection of music from across nearly all of their releases. I recognised 'Hunted down' from their first-ever release Screaming life in 1987, 'Flower' and 'Beyond the wheel' from Ultramega OK, 'Rusty cage', 'Outshined', 'Slaves and bulldozers' and 'Room a thousand miles wide' (which they opened with) from Batmotorfinger, 'My wave', 'Fell on black days', 'Superunknown', 'Spoonman', 'The day I tried to live' and 'Like suicide' from Superuknown, 'Rhinosaur', 'Dusty', a frantic, sped-up version of 'Ty Cobb', 'Blow up the outside world' and 'Burden in my hand' from Down on the upside and 'Been away too long' (which Cornell specifically dedicated to us, their loyal fans) and 'Non-state actor' from the latest album King Animal. Their second song was 'Spoonman' - one of my absolute favourite tracks, and I was surprised to hear it so early in their setlist - and some very early stuff before they were commercially recognised ('Flower' and 'Hunted down', which I was initially startled by and then thankful for).
After enthralling us for over 1.5hrs, they came back for an encores (after nearly 5 minutes non-stop applause, foot-stomping and wild cheering), where Cornell engaged with the crowd a little (and even played a requested track as part of their encore), before ending the night with an extended version of 'Beyond the wheel' (after which Cameron threw his drumsticks into the crowd, answered with a cheer of approval) which bled into heavy distorted noise in an apparent competitive prank between Shepherd and Thayil, twiddling knobs on their PAs and getting the feedback to compete with each others guitars, before eventually Thayil left his guitar to feed into the PA by itself, grinned cheekily and waved into the crowd, and disappeared (the guitar competition was quite loud: I'm still slowly regaining my hearing even as I type this some time later). The lights came on 30sec later, with just a minute to spare until the suburb's 11pm curfew.
They even had a merchandise stand set up inside! Rather than join the queues of sweaty and croaking fans after the gig, I decided to hell with it and bought a tour t-shirt like a good little corporate whore, even changing into it for the gig to christen it, before leaving my jacket and old t-shirt in the cloakroom before the gig started; now I finally have a piece of Soundgarden history. :)
All in all, a fantastic night: to see one of my all-time, absolute favourite bands - a band that represents a lot of my teenage memories, growing up listening to them in the early-mid 90s - on home-turf was excellent. I think what I really liked about the gig in particular was the actual fans: Soundgarden have been around for quite some time, giving fans who actually like their music plenty of time to memorise each song's lyrics; the fact that the bunch of people (English, Spanish, and even some Swedish) I happened to be floating around on the floor this evening were more or less passionately singing along to virtually every song - along with me - also really made the evening. The band knew this as well: Cornell accommodated us and bent down to aim his mic at us as we belted out 'Fell on black days' without him halfway through the evening. To be with other fans more than happy to sing along to the songs we loved (pretty much every single one of them), raising arms, clapping along, with nearly everyone else around us made the audience at this gig at least probably one of the most friendly I've known; more than worth the consequence of my voice dissolving by the end of the night. So long as one stayed away from the mosh pit, audience aggro was also down to a minimum.
Also, not a bad personal effort: that's my second gig I've attended this year for favourite bands of my younger years that have broken up and reformed recently (the first was Dead Can Dance in Zurich) when my average over the years is usually one gig every two years. :)
This entry was originally posted at http://mnemonia.dreamwidth.org/328505.html. Comments may be left on either entry.
The gig was at The Brixton Academy, in the middle of Brixton just south of the Thames, and was a simple 5min walk from the tube. Despite it being the virtual centre of modern music in central London, I'd actually never been to the Brixton Academy before, but it wasn't hard to find, with its Art Deco entrance. The queue was right around the block when I arrived just before 1900hrs, but the doors opened just after and the queue moved fairly quickly, so I was inside and got a good spot on the floor completely at random, just right of the centre quite close to the stage, leaning against a rail that was some distance from the mosh pit right at the front (I'm just too old for those things these days!) with a pint of Guinness as company. A Swedish hard-rock band called Graveyard opened for them at 2000hrs and played for 30min (I'd call them a heavier and more energetic version of the Black Keys), before Soundgarden walked out on stage bang on 2100hrs; they were, naturally, wonderful.
Chris Cornell was his energetic best, jumping around from time to time, taking the time to talk to the audience and introduce songs - even lean down and squint to read some of the posters other fans had made - suggesting for us to clap along, and wailing at his absolute best. The rest of the band were also brilliant: Kim Thayil on lead guitar letting his instrument doing most of the talking with the occasional grin (with a nice hat, by the way); Ben Shepherd on bass pulling faces every now and then at other band members and the audience on occasion, and throwing the occasional cup of water into the dancing audience; and Matt Cameron on drums, easily keeping Soundgarden's unusual time signatures (he was the reason I elected to be a drummer in early high school). It was also apparently the last show in their European tour, so whether or not Cornell's relaxed and friendly attitude (and Shepherd's quirkiness) was due to that I've no idea. Still loved it all.
Despite having released a new album last year, they played a wide selection of music from across nearly all of their releases. I recognised 'Hunted down' from their first-ever release Screaming life in 1987, 'Flower' and 'Beyond the wheel' from Ultramega OK, 'Rusty cage', 'Outshined', 'Slaves and bulldozers' and 'Room a thousand miles wide' (which they opened with) from Batmotorfinger, 'My wave', 'Fell on black days', 'Superunknown', 'Spoonman', 'The day I tried to live' and 'Like suicide' from Superuknown, 'Rhinosaur', 'Dusty', a frantic, sped-up version of 'Ty Cobb', 'Blow up the outside world' and 'Burden in my hand' from Down on the upside and 'Been away too long' (which Cornell specifically dedicated to us, their loyal fans) and 'Non-state actor' from the latest album King Animal. Their second song was 'Spoonman' - one of my absolute favourite tracks, and I was surprised to hear it so early in their setlist - and some very early stuff before they were commercially recognised ('Flower' and 'Hunted down', which I was initially startled by and then thankful for).
After enthralling us for over 1.5hrs, they came back for an encores (after nearly 5 minutes non-stop applause, foot-stomping and wild cheering), where Cornell engaged with the crowd a little (and even played a requested track as part of their encore), before ending the night with an extended version of 'Beyond the wheel' (after which Cameron threw his drumsticks into the crowd, answered with a cheer of approval) which bled into heavy distorted noise in an apparent competitive prank between Shepherd and Thayil, twiddling knobs on their PAs and getting the feedback to compete with each others guitars, before eventually Thayil left his guitar to feed into the PA by itself, grinned cheekily and waved into the crowd, and disappeared (the guitar competition was quite loud: I'm still slowly regaining my hearing even as I type this some time later). The lights came on 30sec later, with just a minute to spare until the suburb's 11pm curfew.
They even had a merchandise stand set up inside! Rather than join the queues of sweaty and croaking fans after the gig, I decided to hell with it and bought a tour t-shirt like a good little corporate whore, even changing into it for the gig to christen it, before leaving my jacket and old t-shirt in the cloakroom before the gig started; now I finally have a piece of Soundgarden history. :)
All in all, a fantastic night: to see one of my all-time, absolute favourite bands - a band that represents a lot of my teenage memories, growing up listening to them in the early-mid 90s - on home-turf was excellent. I think what I really liked about the gig in particular was the actual fans: Soundgarden have been around for quite some time, giving fans who actually like their music plenty of time to memorise each song's lyrics; the fact that the bunch of people (English, Spanish, and even some Swedish) I happened to be floating around on the floor this evening were more or less passionately singing along to virtually every song - along with me - also really made the evening. The band knew this as well: Cornell accommodated us and bent down to aim his mic at us as we belted out 'Fell on black days' without him halfway through the evening. To be with other fans more than happy to sing along to the songs we loved (pretty much every single one of them), raising arms, clapping along, with nearly everyone else around us made the audience at this gig at least probably one of the most friendly I've known; more than worth the consequence of my voice dissolving by the end of the night. So long as one stayed away from the mosh pit, audience aggro was also down to a minimum.
Also, not a bad personal effort: that's my second gig I've attended this year for favourite bands of my younger years that have broken up and reformed recently (the first was Dead Can Dance in Zurich) when my average over the years is usually one gig every two years. :)
This entry was originally posted at http://mnemonia.dreamwidth.org/328505.html. Comments may be left on either entry.