Chris Cornell @ BofA Pavilion

[music | Misfits - She]

Chris Cornell, with Juliette and the Licks. I think the opinion on Juliette Lewis was "I expected nothing, and we got better than that". They weren't horrible, I think she was going for Aerosmith but with a different girl as lead singer. Like maybe Aero-Patty-Smith.

The funniest part about Juliette Lewis was the two superfans, one on each side of the stage, who were absolutely ballistic the entire time. One girl who was singing along with the entire set, and one guy about my age, little over my weight, in a brand-new Juliette and the Licks shirt, also singing along the entire time. He was mesmerizing. I actually checked around after her set was over to see if they stuck around for Chris Cornell or if they'd just seen what they wanted and split.

As I hear it, their big record just broke in Belgium.

Chris Cornell himself was completely amazing. We were only in the 4th row, so proximity had a lot to do with the experience, but I think that even if we were all the way in the back, this still would have been the best show I've seen in a long time. Making up (almost) completely for missing out on Morrissey. He played just about all the Soundgarden you could hope to hear, just lots of songs from his whole career.

I wasn't that into Superunknown when it came out, and didn't buy the next SG record, and was never much of a fan of Audioslave (don't know why) and didn't pay much attention to his solo stuff. Still, I'm a convert. That's a hard thing to do, I like everything, but if there's something I'm not into, I generally stay not-into-it. I think it was because I didn't dislike his music, I was just drifting away from the genre as a whole at the time becoming Mr Industrial Guy for a while.

The set was split to thirds roughly with the first bit being full band electric, then a solo acoustic set (BILLY JEAN! he should have moonwalked), and then full band for the rest. A full setlist is here toward the bottom of the page. I guess there was supposed to be a second encore of Black Hole Sun, but since as I mentioned, it's not really my favorite song in the world, I'm not too broken up over that.

If I'd heard he was playing again tomorrow night, but ticket prices were doubled, I'd go again immediately. He has lost nothing from his voice, though he did skip the two very highest notes I think (from Say Hello 2 Heaven and Rusty Cage).

Again, even from 15 feet away, cameraphones have failed me, so screw the pictures. I would much rather have a bootleg of this anyway.