Seattle Supergroup Remembers Lost Friend With Epic Set
By Dave Pehling
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- It's not often a band embarks on its first full-fledged tour a quarter of a century after releasing a debut album, but then there aren't too many bands that can boast the kind of pedigree Temple of the Dog possesses. Formed in 1990 after the death of Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood by heroin overdose, the group featured Wood's roommate and Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell teaming with Mother Love Bone members Jeff Ament (bass) and Stone Gossard (guitar) as a way to deal with the grief from losing their friend and collaborator.
Coalescing just as Ament and Gossard were putting together the band that would become Pearl Jam with guitarist Mike McCready and singer Eddie Vedder, Temple of the Dog would be rounded out by McCready and Soundgarden drummer Matt Cameron (who eventually joined Pearl Jam in 1998) with significant vocal contributions from Vedder. The all-star ensemble's sole eponymous album was recorded the month after Pearl Jam's first ever live show and captured lightning in a bottle with it's mix of elegiac ballads and muscular rockers that nodded far more explicitly to '70s rock influences than their other bands.
While the songs would only rarely be revisited onstage at certain occasions -- a few times during the 1992 Lollapalooza Tour with Soundgarden and Pearl Jam just as the bands broke through to a wider audience and the odd benefit concert over the years -- the reunited group minus Vedder brought it's current sold-out tour marking the album's 25th anniversary to San Francisco for the first of two nights at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium Friday.
Taking the spartan, unadorned stage under dim lights to an instrumental version of the Mother Love Bone piano ballad "Man of Golden Words," the quintet elicited a roar from the packed house with the first watery, organ-like notes of guitar from Gossard that introduced "Say Hello 2 Heaven." As it would on a number of songs throughout the evening, the audience served as a mass choir, carrying not only the tune's soaring chorus but several key lines during the verses as Cornell's powerful voice warmed up for what would be a marathon, two-hour plus set.
Cornell thanked the audience for waiting the 25 years it took for Temple of the Dog to finally hit the road before the band moved into a languid take on "Wooden Jesus" that built to a climax around the singer's howling vocals and McCready's stinging solo. The mournful ballad "Call Me a Dog" followed, showing the relaxed approach the band was embracing by front-loading the performance with three of the album's more laid-back songs. But if the crowd was impatient to get to Temple of the Dog's heavier material, they didn't show it as they sang along and waved their hand through heartfelt musical tributes to Wood's memory.
The singer talked about how the band had came together to celebrate Wood and his music between songs. "I feel a certain triumph seeing this many people come to see us play this record," said Cornell. "One of the objectives was to get people to hear and seek out and find and be exposed to Andrew Wood's music. And because you guys are here, I know you've all done that."
He went on to describe how the broken AM radio in his '69 Ford Galaxy that was stuck to an evangelical station inspired the next song before Cameron pounded out the martial beat introducing "Your Saviour" and it's staccato, wah-wah guitar riffs dealt out by Gossard and McCready. Having already worked through almost half of the band's only album, Cornell and company continued the show with a pair of songs from the Mother Love Bone album Apple that was slated for release only days after Wood passed away.
With Ament's thunderous 12-string bass adding to the sonic heft, "Stardog Champion" unspooled a sound more akin to the psychedelic alt-metal of Jane's Addiction than grunge, while "Stargazer" nodded to acoustic Zeppelin (as did the version of "Seasons," a solo Cornell track from the Cameron Crowe grunge-era movie Singles). As enthusiastic as the masses were to sing along to the old Mother Love Bone gems, it was hard to imagine how it must have felt for Ament and Gossard to perform the songs that likely would have catapulted the musicians to stardom if not for Wood's untimely demise in front of thousands of fans.
The link back to the classic rock of the '70s hinted at in those songs was made clearer in the choice of covers the band made. A stomping, glam-tinged take on Harry Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire" and the blues workout "I'm a Mover" -- a Free song that closed Cornell and McCready trading phrases back and forth -- bookended the original TotD dirge "Four Walled World," one of the few tunes from the album that wouldn't have sounded out of place on Soundgarden's Superunknown.
Cornell acknowledged another missing party at the concert when he asked the audience to fill in for the absent Eddie Vedder, a request the crowd took to heart during an emotional rendition of Temple of the Dog's biggest hit, "Hunger Strike." The balance of the main set would pendulum between poignant covers -- David Bowie's "Quicksand" and "River of Deceit," a song by McCready's Mad Season side project with the late Alice in Chains singer Lane Staley -- and fist-pumping Mother Love Bone anthems "Heartshine" and "Holy Roller" before an incendiary reading of the epic guitar showcase "Reach Down" that had McCready unleashing one of the night's most ferocious solos.
But Temple of the Dog weren't done by a long shot. Initially Cornell returned to the stage solo for an acoustic version of "Man of Golden Words" that interpolated a verse of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" before the rest of the band joined him for the plaintive "Times of Trouble." The band then moved on to what Cornell introduced as "pure, 100 percent self indulgence," slamming into a stunning version of "Achilles Last Stand" by Led Zeppelin.
About as daunting a cover as the band could have picked, Temple of the Dog attacked the galloping epic with zeal. Cameron and Ament hammered out the song's complex rhythms as McCready and Gossard skillfully replicated Jimmy Page's guitar parts, but it was here that Cornell showed why he's not only one of the best singers of the alt-rock generation, but one of the few who has rightfully earned a spot alongside Robert Plant and Freddie Mercury as an all-time great rock vocalist.
While the band didn't quite top that highlight, it came close as the extended encore neared a close. An propulsive unreleased Cornell song entitled "Missing" that had never been performed live prior to this tour dovetailed into the loping version of "Fascination Street," a moody classic by the Cure before the band offered up appeasement to its headbanging fans by playing Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" at crushing volume. The moving Temple of the Dog album closer "All Night Thing" brought the long night of music to a satisfying finish.
Setlist
Say Hello 2 Heaven
Wooden Jesus
Call Me a Dog
Your Saviour
Stardog Champion (Mother Love Bone cover)
Stargazer (Mother Love Bone cover)
Seasons (Chris Cornell song)
Jump Into the Fire (Harry Nilsson cover)
Four Walled World
I'm a Mover (Free cover)
Pushin' Forward Back
Hunger Strike
Quicksand (David Bowie cover)
Heartshine (Mother Love Bone cover)
River of Deceit (Mad Season cover)
Holy Roller (Mother Love Bone cover)
Reach Down
Encore
Man of Golden Words (Cornell solo acoustic Mother Love Bone cover including part of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb")
Times of Trouble
Achilles Last Stand (Led Zeppelin cover)
Missing (Chris Cornell song)
Fascination Street (The Cure cover)
War Pigs (Black Sabbath cover)
All Night Thing
