First things first i am not a Soundgarden fan,in fact when they burst on to our MTV screens back in the early ninties along with the likes of Pearl Jam and Nirvana i hated them.Simply because their arrival spelt the end for a lot of the bands i was following at the time,.Great White,Poison,Ratt,bands who looked like they were enjoying themselves as opposed to looking like they were told they had a hour to live. So it was a good job tonight was a freebie thanks to my wife who won the tickets in a radio phone in but declined to come with me. So after many "cant make it sorrys", a polish workmate of mine agreed to join me as the venue was 34 seconds from his apartment. We arrive in good spirits even for a monday evening and quickly grab a couple of beers and take our seats on the balcony front row centre. Showtime,lights go down,strobe lights circle the arena and an uptempo into tape suggests a lively start,WRONG,Chris Cornell and co arrive on stage and treat us to five minutes of misery with a song called Incessant Mace.I always knew grunge metal was dark and moody at times but this made Leonard Cohen sound like Neil Sedaka.This promply made my workmate stand up to roar "this is sheeeet" before stomping to the bar.Dont get me wrong there was high moments in the set,Been Away Too Long and first encore Rusty Gage got my beer shaking and the hardcore crowd on the ground floor seemed to be in grunge heaven for most of the night.I will freely admit not been familiar with a lot of their music but i was expecting to hear their massive hit Black Hole Sun at some stage of the night but for some reason it was canned tonight.But nothing could prepare me for the finale,after final song Beyond The Wheel Cornell and drummer Matt Cameron wave goodbye to the crowd,but guitarist Kim Thayll and bass player Ben Sheppard hung back to inflict ten minutes of self indulgent feedback on the audience,the noise was so bad i thought my fillings were going to explode through my nostrils.There it went, ten minutes of my life i will never get back.Christ even Cornells dodgy Bond song would of sounded better.
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