Grand Prairie Getting the ol' gang back together and hitting the road on a reunion tour can be a dicey proposition.
Where to draw the line? Faithfully re-create the hits, please the paying customers and feel artistically shortchanged? Radically alter the classics, risk alienating the screaming masses and reconnect with the creative drive which catapulted your band to stardom in the first place? Split the difference?
There's a fourth, rarely exercised option: Just show up, give a damn and attack even the most familiar songs with a passion that can be felt all the way to the back of the room. Thankfully, that was what Soundgarden elected to do, delivering a two-hour blitzkrieg Wednesday night to a nearly sold-out Verizon Theatre. The four, originally Seattle-based bandmates -- vocalist/guitarist Chris Cornell, guitarist Kim Thayil, drummer Matt Cameron and bassist Ben Shepherd -- split up in the waning years of the Clinton administration, only to heal their wounds and regroup last summer.
It was as if hardly any time had passed. From the opening notes of Searching with My Good Eye Closed (from the quartet's 1991 breakthrough Badmotorfinger) through to the dirge-like, exquisitely grim fade-out of Superunknown's 4th of July, Soundgarden displayed a ruthless efficiency, tempered with an obvious affection for the rapturous response -- an hour into the evening and the band was already halfway through its set.
"Thank you for waiting around for so long for Soundgarden to come back," said a scruffy, grinning Cornell, not long after taking the stage. It was appropriately grateful without being obnoxious; it also seemed to suggest that Cornell, long publicly indifferent to the band's legacy, has finally realized these songs will never be equaled. It wasn't just words illustrating the band's gratitude; during Spoonman, Cornell let a few hands from the pit strum his guitar, delivering a fist bump as a thanks.
Apart from the deftly sequenced set list (the final five selections of the main set were a pure tour-de-force that left a giant grin on my face), the musicians were on point throughout. The low end, supplied by Shepherd and that signature drop-D rumble, kicked you in the chest like a steel-toed boot, as Cornell's amazingly potent voice sliced through the murk like a scalpel and Thayil's nimble guitar lines wrapped around everything like so much glittering wire. (Seriously: Cornell's face may betray a few deeper lines, but his voice is as powerful and has as much range as it did in the heyday of 120 Minutes.) The stage design was minimal, relying on a blinding, restless series of lighting trusses and a low-key video backdrop that favored psychedelic oddities.
Of course, none of it would have worked if not for the surprisingly durable songs, most of which were presented largely untouched. Rather than lean too heavily on the staples (Black Hole Sun prompted several bros in the pit to lose their minds, as if receiving some sort of beer-soaked communication from beyond), Soundgarden was careful to pummel the willing audience with deep cuts like Gun or Hunted Down that elicited a roar from those who worship the entire catalog.
Mostly, the night proved that red-blooded rock, played by talented individuals and embraced by an audience on the same wavelength, can conjure something like magic. (It also sparked a desire to immediately go home and get lost in Soundgarden's albums.) After the handful of shows this year, Soundgarden will go back into the studio and finish work on a new album -- the band's sixth overall -- which is due out in the spring. Even if these gigs end up being the apex of the reunion and Soundgarden once again dissolves, it's worth it to know that yes, it is possible to recapture, however briefly, that which endeared you to so many millions, so long ago.
Set list
1. Searching with My Good Eye Closed
2. Spoonman
3. Gun
4. Jesus Christ Pose
5. Blow Up the Outside World
6. The Day I Tried to Live
7. My Wave
8. Burden in My Hand
9. Ugly Truth
10. Fell on Black Days
11. Hunted Down
12. Drawing Flies
13. Black Hole Sun
14. Outshined
15. Rusty Cage
16. Head Down
17. Pretty Noose
18. Superunknown
19. 4th of July
Encore
20. Room a Thousand Years Wide
21. Beyond the Wheel
22. Slaves and Bulldozers
