This was written a year ago after Soundgarden's final show
The last time I saw Chris Cornell he was hunched in front of his amplifier moving his guitar around to create screeching, echoing feedback that filled the theater as a sonic crescendo to their track Slaves and Bulldozers. It was shortly after 11 p.m. on May 17, 2017.
When I got home from the show, I crept into a quiet house, wife and children sleeping peacefully. I opened a bag of pretzels and a bottle of water in the kitchen and had a snack as I looked through the few photos and video clips I'd taken that evening. The photos were not good, but I had a 53 second clip of that last song. I opened Instagram, trimmed the end of the clip so it ended in a good spot, and then uploaded it. It was 12:01 a.m.
Slaves and Bulldozers - Soundgarden's final song (Uncle Sam/YouTube)
It had been a memorable night. After circling the area behind the Fox Theatre a few times I was able to find a street parking spot, no small miracle with a Tigers game happening across the street from a sold out concert. My friend Steve and I stopped into the Town Pump Tavern for some food and then walked to the Fox.
We entered the building and worked our way through the crowded lobby while openers The Pretty Reckless were wrapping up their set. It was a hot day in Detroit, and the packed theater was warm. Our seats were to the side of the stage, with good sight lines. Soon the house lights went out and we heard the beginning of 1989's Ugly Truth.
Standing in my kitchen, I thought how the show was different than ones I'd been to in the past, and different than the previous times I'd seen Soundgarden. This time I felt like I got to really savor the work of the band. In recent years, Chris Cornell had shown up on a few radio programs to do solo acoustic versions of some of Soundgarden's hits. Those performances highlighted the melodies, songwriting, and character of Cornell's voice, but tonight was about the sonic power of Soundgarden.
Twenty-five year prior, nearly to the day, I was 17 and watched Soundgarden next door to the Fox, at the State Theater (now known as The Fillmore, as an exercise in branding that probably makes sense to the people on the West Coast who devised it). I remember more of the drive to that show than the show itself. Looking up the date, I was surprised to realize my brother had died less than a month before it, and it made sense - things in that time were sort of a jumbled blur for me.
The Fox show started with the drumming of Matt Cameron playing the intro to Ugly Truth. Through the entire set list he propelled the music, and throughout the night I particularly focused on the passages where he was joined by Ben Shepherd's bass playing. The driving bass lines over the intricate drum patterns, created a groove that underpins almost all of Soundgarden's music.
We were on the side of the stage where Kim Thayil was playing. While the melodies and vocals provided by Cornell are certainly the core of the music, Thayil provides a tone that is difficult to describe. It is a heavy tone to be sure, but it has a warmth and smoothness. To me it is as distinct as Cornell's voice, like a metal tone under a creeping Pacific Northwest fog.*
I was completely happy with the set list. I loved that they opened with Ugly Truth. The only two songs that would have made it better for me would be Hands All Over and Gun. When Cornell briefly left the stage after saying something about a backup guitar and the band jammed, I thought about yelling out "Gun!", but realized this it's probably not the best idea in a crowded theater.
There were some small issues I noticed during the set, Cornell leaving briefly after the guitar remark, him sounding a little vocally tired at points, and Thayil's guitar seemed a little too hot in the mix a few times. As someone who has dealt with live sound, I know that these things happen and also sometimes the monitor mix on stage can be bad. There are times you're screaming to hear yourself in the mix and you're wearing yourself out.
I also knew Soundgarden had three days off before this show, which I assumed might be to give Cornell some vocal rest. Some people can sing like that day after day, maybe he was one, but I have no idea. The bottom line is, I don't expect perfection, not from a band performing songs from 20+ years ago, and I have heard many bands sound way worse. I thought a lot of the critiques posted later sounded like nitpicking.
Soundgarden felt locked in, and feeding off the crowd. If Cornell was having issues, nobody seemed to care, the audience was noisy and enthusiastic. It felt like there was tons of energy in the room - the band, the music, and the fans. Cornell thanked the audience several times and praised Detroit repeatedly. It might have been stage banter, but it felt sincere.
"We'll see you soon" - Chris Cornell at the end of Slaves and Bulldozers
The show ended with Slaves and Bulldozers, followed by the cacophony of screaming feedback from all the amps. As the musicians manipulated their instruments the noise echoed through their effects and the crowd roared. Matt Cameron left his drum kit, waved to the crowd, handed someone his sticks and walked off stage. Ben Shepherd placed his bass on top of his amplifier stack and knocked the whole thing over before leaving with a wave. Kim Thayil left his guitar on his amp, picked up a Heineken, gave cheers to the crowd and strolled off sipping his beer.
Somewhere in all of the noise and chaos, Chris Cornell had just slipped off the stage.
After uploading the Instagram video, I turned out the light and headed up to bed.
A couple of hours later my wife woke me up. "Hey, they're saying Chris Cornell is dead."
It was a night that was suffused with nostalgia, drawing one back into their younger self. It seemed to end with the death of it.
We can't go back there anymore, not this way.
*Watch the video of Megadeth, a band of virtuoso metalheads covering Outshined in Japan in tribute to Cornell. They can play anything, but the brash speedmetal guitar tone sucks the rolling low end out of the song.
See my post about the final hours of Chris Cornell here - The Last Hours of Soundgarden