It’s been a while since I’ve done a concert review, so here is a fresh one. Last night I saw A Perfect Circle at The Honda Center in Anaheim, CA. Overall, it was a great show with a good mix of material from the new and previous albums. I was not expecting an opening act, but they had two openers, Night Club and Tricky.
The show was visually stunning, with lots of colored lights and a cool rear projected video to go along with the music. The players are all pretty much silhouettes throughout the show, so that’s the downside if you like to see the band members clearly.
The venue isn’t known to have very good sound quality, so some of the louder songs didn’t sound great but the rest of the songs were decent. My favorite section of the set was Peace, Love and Understanding – Vanishing – The Noose.
On Thursday I went to see Pearl Jam at the Viejas Arena in San Diego. I went in with what I was sure were unreasonably high expectations, but I was not disappointed. What I got was the best live performance I’ve seen, removing any doubts that Pearl Jam is the epitome of rock bands.
The show lasted about three hours and had a good mix of new songs, old songs, and a few covers, and they seemed to save the best for last. The sound quality was excellent, especially for an indoor arena. Pearl Jam’s sound people seem to know what they are doing, instead of just turning everything to 11. Eddie did a lot of talking and drank from a bottle of wine between songs (he seemed a bit drunk near the end), even passing a bottle to his mom via audience.
They ended the show with The Who’s Baba O’Riley, Yellow Ledbetter with The Star Spangled Banner guitar outro, and then a great cover of Rockin’ in the Free World. Overall, it was a great set. The only thing missing that I would have liked to see was Jeremy, Daughter, and/or Corduroy.
I saw Soundgarden perform at The Wiltern on the 16th. The performance was excellent, the mixing could have been better (the bass drowned out the leads), and the crowd was mature (someone even brought a young child). Overall it was a great experience. I never thought this would happen.
The Wiltern, named after its position on the corner of Wilshire and Western, was a very nice setting. Entering the lobby was like entering a movie theater in the 50’s. The walls and ceiling had lots of fancy carving and molding to admire while waiting for the show.
Here is the set list. It was a good mix of songs spanning their entire career. Matt Cameron’s son played guitar on Eyelid’s Mouth.
Nothing to Say
Flower
Outshined
Gun
Jesus Christ Pose
By Crooked Steps
Room a Thousand Years Wide
Attrition
The Day I Tried to Live
Been Away Too Long
Worse Dreams
Get on the Snake
Ugly Truth
Non-State Actor
Ty Cobb
Drawing Flies
Blow Up the Outside World
Fell on Black Days
Eyelid’s Mouth
Loud Love
Rowing
Encore:
Searching with My Good Eye Closed
Rusty Cage
Beyond the Wheel
Here is a video I found from that night. I was right behind the person recording the video, so this was pretty much my view.
Live on I-5 is the first live compilation album released by Soundgarden. It contains 17 recordings from the West Coast part of their 1996 tour, so it covers all parts of Soundgarden’s career. It also features two covers to change things up a bit.
The quality of the recordings is excellent, with a full sound and a good mix of everything. You can make out all the parts with clarity. I found the crowd noise excessive at parts, but the band is plenty loud.
My only regret is not pre-ordering directly from SoundgardenWorld.com since that was the only way to get the bonus track and soundcheck CD. There was also a bonus DVD for buying the album at Best Buy, but that was just three songs from the 2010 Lollapalooza. I guess you have to choose which bonus you want or buy it twice? That’s dumb.
Update: I downloaded the bonus tracks via iTunes and it was worth it. They sound great!
Soundgarden has resurfaced to perform at Lollapalooza and to announce Telephantasm, a retrospective due on September 28th. This will include many alternative versions of songs as well as several unreleased videos on DVD. It also includes “Black Rain,” a previously unreleased track recorded during the Badmotorfinger sessions. It sounds great!
You can listen to it right here:
The artwork for Telephantasm is also incredible, I might add! You can see full-sized images by clicking on either banner in this post. It’s also my new desktop background.
Soundgarden’s appearance at Lollapalooza marks their third performance since their return, including the one at the Showbox which I talked about in a previous post. They have exceeded my expectations with each performance. Chris can still sing, Kim can still make his crazy sounds, Ben can still manage to reach the floor, and Matt is perfect. 😀
I’ve already pre-ordered the Super Ultra Deluxe edition of Telephantasm. Now I wait…
In my 2010 post I mentioned the possible reunion of Soundgarden, but now it appears to be confirmed. On April 16, they put on a show in Seattle under the anagram “Nudedragons.” They also released an official live video of them performing “Beyond the Wheel” which is awesome.
The band performed all of their classics as well as a cover of The Doors’ “Waiting for the Sun.” They still sound amazing by the way, especially for their first live performance in about 12 years. Looking for more from this show on YouTube, I found this awesome channel which has audio of the whole set.
Here’s a playlist I put together that has them in order according to the set list. Enjoy:
Well it’s been 2010 for five days now, so I think it’s about time for a post. The new decade came with a surprising announcement. So here’s a short post about that and stuff…
If you pay any attention, you know that my favorite band without question is Soundgarden. Unfortunately they have been broken up since ’97, so by the time I discovered the band there was no chance of seeing them live or anything. Whenever asked, the frontman Chris Cornell always said they would never get back together.
So you can imagine my amazement to see this tweet on New Year’s Eve. I just hope that it’s true, and I’m looking forward to more news about this potential reunion.
Live on I-5 is the first live compilation album released by Soundgarden. It contains 17 recordings from the West Coast part of their 1996 tour, so it covers all parts of Soundgarden’s career. It also features two covers to change things up a bit.
