Music, Part 1.

It's been a while since I posted, thanks to Civilization IV. Anyway, I went to the Audioslave show at Lowell last night. My expectations were pretty tepid, due to a general lack of enthusiasm for their music, my growing antipathy towards going to shows, and seeing one of my idols, Chris Cornell, slowly fading from relevance and, it seemed, talent.

However, I was very pleasantly surprised. Some highlights:

-Cornell was 'on' from song one. His voice, raspy and off-key in these older days, was clear and powerful. I couldn't help but smile like a goofy bastard. He still knows how to work the crowd, although he's a lot less confrontational and sarcastic than he used to be. It's the kinder, gentler, older, tanner, soberer Chris Cornell.

-Morello being Morello. Guitar at his chest, fingers flying, feet stomping, pulling-the-power-cord-out-and-rubbing-them-over-the-strings-to-create-some-crazy-noise. I'll always marvel at his mastery of the guitar.

-Brad Wilk wearing a gorilla mask for most of the show.

-A choice selection of Soundgarden/Rage Against the Machine/Temple of the Dog songs. Disappointingly, the Soundgarden/Temple of the Dog reception was a little underwhelming. It seemed like only half of the audience recognized 'Rusty Cage'. I think five people recognized 'Slaves & Bulldozers' (two of them being me and Jon). The pop for RATM was crazy though. Probably the most fervent reaction of the night. Morello/Cummerford/Wilk were excellent playing Cornell's stuff. As for Cornell rapping...

-The first encore, which had solo, acoustic Cornell. Beautiful. The crowd kind of fell asleep though.

A couple of gripes:

-The crackhead couple in front of us who were way too enthusiastic about everything.

-There seemed to be too much of a concerted effort to play the 'hits'. It would've been nice to hear some Audioslave non-singles ('Yesterday to Tomorrow,' 'Give', 'Hypnotize'), although I generally did like the setlist. And I wouldn't have sacrificed any of the SG/RATM songs to hear them.

-Finding out from my brother, right before the show, that Theo resigned. With text messaging though, it's difficult to tell if he meant 're-signed' or 'resigned'. Unfortunately, it was the latter.