Chris Cornell Live in Dallas, 4/27/07

A lucky shot I got with my camera phone. It was taken during "Black Hole Sun."

I've gotta say that I had my moments yesterday when I wondered whether it was really worth it. After paying a comparatively reasonable $27.50 each for two tickets to see Chris Cornell, after paying $10 for a fishy-tasting oyster po boy in a bar full of West End assholes, after finding a parking ticket on the van since I was 10 minutes late (how long DOES it take to drop my dinner in a deep fryer anyway?), after paying $10 to park and then learning, sadly, that my boy Mike couldn't make it to the show... Yeah, I wondered if it was really worth it.

But screw it. I've dug Chris Cornell since Soundgarden's Louder Than Love days. That was some dark, angry, sludgy stuff. Soundgarden had fistfuls of great songs, then they were gone.

I've meant for way too long to get Euphoria Morning, Cornell's first CD. But for as many times as I've heard folks swear by it, I've heard it given the stamp of "so so-ness" too many times.

Audioslave didn't do much for me. It seemed like they had some great songs that were hamstrung by the fact that the trio that used to provide the singular stomp for Rage Against the Machine weren't... all... that... great. There, I said it. In "Cochise," there's just too much space where interesting things should be happening. Morello's got this rep for being a great guitar player and all, and I can't say I sat through enough to intend to shoot that down here, but more often than not I found myself thinking, Yeah, I've got an envelope filter pedal too, and it sounds just like that when I play through it.

***

The line to get in was damn long, but two fans behind me chatted eagerly about this and that. At one point one mentioned there's some bootleg material of Cornell performing with Jeff Buckley out there--whoa! Really?

I found it odd that there was absolutly no meaningful security check. I mean, they scanned IDs and issued bracelets, but no one checked my pockets, ran a wand over me, or thought to see whether I was carrying an Uzi or perhaps weapons of mass destruction into the place.

***

At about 9pm Cornell and his band took the stage at the Palladium (which seems to be part of Gilley's). I was standing at stage left, about 25 feet in front of guitarist Yogi.

Here's a camcorder recording of "Spoonman," his opening number from the show last night. I didn't shoot this.



It was immediately clear that the guy's voice is no studio creation. As many times as I've listened to his CDs and marveled at those pipes, well, just add this show to that, man. Really... how in the HELL does he do that?

I'd seen a webcast of a Cornell solo show online last week, and I was unimpressed. The band was tentative, really not into it from all appearances. He did say it was the first time for them to play "amplified." I'm not sure if he was serious, but they didn't sound so great.

Last night, though, they were a full-blown rock band. Two guitars, bass, drums... you know, the way God intended it. They were energetic, and the crowd was into it.

The show was put together well, and really worked in a way some shows seem to forget all about. That is, when he played a few songs I didn't know, I wasn't thinking, Hurry up and get to something I recognize. I was thinking about how well he was singing, or noticing a great melody.

The setlist was terrific, with plenty of stuff from across his career. From Soundgarden he went as far back as to play "Loud Love," which was brutally hypnotic. He also played "Fell on Black Days," "Jesus Christ Pose" (WOW), "Rusty Cage," "Black Hole Sun," "Outshined" (which he said is about a friend of his who died)... He also played a gorgeous "Seasons" from the Singles soundtrack. He did Euphoria Morning stuff which made me think I'd made a dreadful mistake by never purchasing that one, and some Audioslave stuff. "Cochise" is much better when fleshed out by a real band.

His solo stuff sounded good, including that song from the Bond movie, and a gorgeous solo acoustic song called "Scar on the Sky." And he did a solo acoustic cover of Bob Marley's "Redemption Song."

***

The band played for a couple hours, including three encores. Cornell himself was in good spirits, cracking jokes with the band and the crowd, telling song-related anecdotes.

The crowd was more aggressive than I expected. I was within spitting distance of no fewer than six girls who nearly scrapped with each other at different times. Four of them just jawed at each other while two shoved back and forth a bit before one disappeared into the crowd.

And during the third encore it got mighty damn tight near the stage there. Some laughing drunk and his girlfriend were determined to shove their way forward, the presence of, you know, my BODY there not meaning a damn thing to them. They pushed, and I simply had nowhere to go. I turned to him and said, "That's all I've got."

He laughed and pushed a little more before giving up, and I must admit that I thought, If I feel pain, I'm going to knock his teeth out. He was in a perfect position for one of those great Krav elbows, and let me tell you, for just a moment I thought it was a possibility.

***

So yeah, despite it all, I'm really glad I went. I was very pleasantly surprised at what a terrific show that was. Gotta scare me up a bootleg of that one.