You're me, you're a kid, you don't really know yet but mtv is still playing music videos and rad shit like The State, Sifl and Olly and OG Aeon Flux before The Real World begat the steaming turd of reality tv on the world before the internet was in everything, and only your baller friends had cable. You live in the mountains and you have one of those shitty RF antennas shaped like rabbit ears and maybe 6 channels, two of them only come in if you wrap tin foil or stack up a pile of vhs. Occasionally you get the chance to veg out in front of cable TV, and eventually you discover music videos, they land on you hard. Like a fresh hit from the 90's culture crack pipe you realize up until now all the music that you've listened to has been diluted by memory and influence. You can't remember the first time you listened to Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Pink Floyd or Hendrix or any other classic shit you've heard since the womb, this shit, it's amazing and you love it, but if you thought hard you'd know its always been there. The stuff you like right now is cool and all but you only come across it on your friends walkman on the bus or on the radio or in that stack of old records your parents have. Music videos are a whole new level of cool that you found all on your own. So this one time, you go on a sleep over and sneak downstairs like a fiend after everyones asleep. You guiltily bathe in the glowing orb, riding the volume and mute button between commercials with a white knuckle dread that someone will hear. They'll come downstairs to find you crouching like a harpy at an eyeball melting distance from the massive 24 inch cathode ray tube and force you to sleep. This can't happen for there will be no telling the next time you would be able pray at the shrine. So, ignoring the clock and the sounds of rustling from upstairs you remain vigilant only to be rewarded by the programming gods with the following line up. 2Pac, California Love Bush Glycerine. 311, Down. Beck, Where its at. No Doubt, Spiderwebs. STP, Big Bang Baby. Soundgarden, Blow Up The Outside World and (ironically) Metallica's, One also Marilyn Manson, Hole, Blackstreet and finally Dr Dre's Aint Nothin But a G Thang. It was unclear at this point as to the depth and degree 40's and volleyball hoes would be affecting your life but when that yellow bikini top gets pulled down it was clear that a formative experience had occurred. Now in hindsight you might say to yourself "wait a minute! some of that shit sucks!", " I can't believe I thought that shit was cool" but just remember you were a kid asshole! Back to back you hear all those songs for the first time and one by one their videos wash over you like the tide and cleanse you of your mountain induced awesome deficiency showing you something new, and different. You never forgot those bands that you found for the first time on your own, and you are honestly not very surprised at how pants shittingly stoked and lucky you are to be hired to record one of them. Flash forward to now, your company Spineshaker Productions was hired to record Chris Cornell! in an intimate solo show!! filmed by Banger Films!!! the guys behind Metal: A Headbangers Journey and Iron Maiden Flight 666!!!! in a sold out show!!!!! on Chris's birthday!!!!!! where he would played for hours!!!!!!! with a long ass encore!!!!!!!!! even bringing his brother out to do a song!!!!!!!! Lets just say your pants were shat.
First off I need to send a shout out and big thank you to James Hill owner of Amplified Wax Studios in Spokane who recommended Spineshaker for the gig and rented us some extra room mics when other arrangements fell through last minute. Jimmy your the man thank you so much for the hook up with the show and the mics your a legend dude. Also a big thanks to Doug McClement of Live Wire Remote Recorders a powerhouse Toronto sound company with thousands of insane recording gigs under their belt, Banger hired Doug to helm the recording and instead of driving his Optimus Prime Mega Truck down from Toronto he hired Spineshaker to provide and run the gear. Doug is a total boss and amazing guy to work with it would be easier to tell you the short list of people he hasn't worked with vs. the ones he has because he has worked with fucking everyone and has been in the business since the golden age of radio. I could write a whole post on just the stories that he told me in the hours we worked together (seriously, he showed me pictures he took of Led Zeppelin playing for like 5 people on a 2 foot riser in some Canadian basement) It was also really cool to get to meet and work with the guys from Banger Films. Sam and Scot the founders of Banger were in the house overseeing the shoot and were super cool to me even though I was totally man fanning them the whole time. I tried to play it cool and pretend I hadn't just been cyber stalking Sam's trip to iceland and only half way asked him about what it was like to eat rotten shark and drink booze with Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth during their coverage of ESITNAFLUG an Icelandic metal festival. Having just gotten off the plane I'm sure he was not interested in answering any of my many Opeth uber nerd questions but he politely answered a few and in the spirit of keeping things professional I put the rest aside and focused on the task at hand. When I met Scot he introduced himself and kindly asked me who I was to which I explained my reason for being there and for lack of anything cool to talk about I shamelessly name dropped a few friends of mine in metal bands that I thought might be mutual acquaintances, I don't think he was impressed. All the rest of the Banger crew were very friendly and fun to talk to including their production manager and super mensch Dave Pattenden. Anyways, if any of you guys happen to read this just know how rad a time it was working with you and I hope we get a chance to do so again in the future.
On the technical side of things the whole gig was pretty much smooth sailing thanks to the Midas rig and aside from a few connectivity hurdles with setting up an X32 core as a redundant recorder we were up and running in no time. When we first arrived we set up in one of the dressing rooms and turned it into a makeshift control room/camera staging area. We started off by taking a split off of the stage snake into the DL32 digital stage box these inputs consisted of...
- two outputs from Chris's different acoustic piezo elements one pre and one post di (I wish I got a better look at what guitars he was using there was a lot of changes it looked like mainly martins and taylors, I think? theres a picture below tell me if you can identify em all)
- an output from the guitar amp through a Palmer PDI-09
- a di output for a mandolin
- a wireless mic signal from a neck worn harmonica mic that Chris would wear when he played harp on a few songs or if he felt like walking around the stage to get closer to the crowd while singing (this ended up being the most temperament signal to deal with as that mic I'm sure was not designed to handle the full power of Chris Cornell belting out vocals)
- a di output from a cello played beautifully by a guy named Bryan Gibson who also played the mandolin and was Chris's only accompaniment for the evening I guess his story is he was putting up cello renditions of CC's songs online which he saw and it led to him going on tour with him!
- CC's main vocal mic and a spare were the next 2 inputs these were audio technica AE-3300's (there was also an input for an M-80 for bryans vocals but I don't think that ended up getting used.)
- then two channels from a radial J-33 stereo turntable preamp that CC used to play vintage vinyl on stage! which was something I had never seen before some of it was used to fill in the silence after the opener and when he left at the end of the night but once in the set he used this turntable to play along with a song which i think is a ballsy move, I mean one scratch or skip and you could have all sorts of potential for fuckups but aside from a couple of weird pops and clicks it actually sounded really good and it performed exactly as intended.
- then a few backup acoustic and vocal di channels nothing majorly cool
- an output for some loops that I don't think they used
- Bryan also played a Nord on stage (i didn't see the actual model as i was only able to sneak around a bit on the stage without exposing myself as a total fanboy geek) that came through a stereo di
- there was a talk back mic
- two SM-89 shotgun mics on short boom stands at stage left and stage right and two FOH audience mics that were shure VP-88's
- aside from what was coming off the snake we had two Royer R122's under the stage facing out along with two M-audio stereo pulsar ii's and up in the balcony we mounted a pair of AKG C214's all of these we hooked into the houses tie lines and along with two KSM137's the house had hanging from the ceiling. Then using one of my 50 foot pro co subsnakes (which I was sure wouldn't be needed but thankfully brought anyways) we got those last signals the rest of the way to the DL32
All of this was brought back to the control room via a single behringer Cat5e cable to the aes50 A port on the M32 which connected easily right to my macbook pro running pro tools 12 via the DN32 usb card. From the aes50 B port we sent a copy of every channel in the entire mix out to a second daw through an x32 core as a redundant backup recorder. We sent a stereo feed back for the camera operators and took timecode from the crews SMPTE generator. Monitoring was done through a pair of M-audio DSM-3's and we were able to set up a screen with a feed from the house camera the picture quality was pretty bad at least we had some kind of idea of what was going on on stage.
The show was kicked off by The Fantastic Negrito a guitar slangin wordsmith from oakland whose wardrobe reminisces back to a certain era of the isley brothers and whose seemingly stripped down set had a soulful dusky delta protest blues feel with a tinge of Saul Williams poetry mixed with the tragedy of a young Django Reinhardt. Solid player solid guy check him out, he made short work of warming up the crowd that was clamouring for the main course with a solid helping of originals and some reimagined covers. In the time leading up to the Mr Cornell taking the stage everyone was a bit unsure about what was going to happen apparently the touring leading up to this point had had a very impromptu feel with a lot of audibles called by Chris at the last minute. The camera crew was unsure as to the exact the start time or end time and they were a bit apprehensive because as soon they clicked that slate they had a finite amount of media to capture the show and it was very possible that he could go over. After all it was his birthday and he had family in the house it was pretty clear that what we were in store for was going to be a unique experience and as the minutes ticked past the time he was set to take the stage an anticipation built in the house and they dropped the needle on the turntable and out came the warm sound of Marvin Gaye's Whats Goin On, then whats happening brother, then Flyin High (in the friendly sky) by the time save the children came on we all started to wonder what the hold up was, by god is love we started to get nervous for the camera guys they were going to be cutting it close, there was a brief glimpse of the man when mercy mercy me came on which elicited a short burst of applause but he had to duck back again to get his guitar set, by this time we were close to twenty minutes past the time he was set too be on then there was gap in the music and a palpable tension in the air but that was interrupted by right on and we all thought fuck! where are you dude? but just when we thought we couldn't wait any more out he came fashionably late to thunderous applause. He rambled on for a minute then casually announced for the first time that temple of the dog would be going on tour for the first time ever like it was no big thing and all my blood promptly rushed to my 90's nerd boner and I passed out. Thus began the main event and the Cornell solo experience train left the station this should be released on a forthcoming dvd I have no idea when but I hope you guys get a chance to check it out if your a Chris Cornell fan this was an amazing night. I don't want to ramble on forever on this so ill just recap the setlist and wrap this up thank you for reading and if you've made it this far wow you must be bored.
1st song was off Higher Truth, called Before We Disappear acoustic guitar and a little nord in the background.
2nd song Cant change Me From Euphoria Morning off his first solo album and probably one of my favorite solo Cornell songs.
3rd song was a song that he wrote for that movie 13 hours secret soldiers of benghazi (the one where jim and roy are in the same squad and its weird cause I just can't see them having each others backs) called Til The Sun Comes Back Around and he took the time to say that while he may not agree with all our countries foreign policies we should all thank the troops for their service and dedicated the song to them.
4th Here he talked for a bit about prince and what a musical hero he was to him and what a loss it was for the world with him gone then he broke into an awesome cover Sinead O'connors Nothing Compares to You growling it out in classic Chris Cornell form backed up by the cello they put a new spin to the tune and I feel like they crushed it and based on the reaction the crowd did too.
5th Nearly Forgot my Broken heart the first song he demoed for Higher Truth, it was a mandolin tune and he joked a bit with Bryan saying "no fuckin hippy ever played the cello cause you gotta work". ha! take that hippies have fun in the Cornell wing of the burn unit.
6th song a cover of Bob Dylan's Times They are a Changing but he thought he might "update the lyrics a little bit to reflect the cynicism and religious paranoia in the world today" he called it the times are changing back and it featured lines like "come bards and bloggers who're losing your heads who only write by repeating what others have said" (that one was hilarious to me as I'm sitting here trying to wrap up this monstrosity) or when he goes on to say "1's and 0's they don't know how to lie if its written it must be a fact" he called out all kinds of bullshit in the world especially taking on the government with lines like "as we carry the load for the 1 percent we bought your seat at the table well the wine pours red and the hearts turn black well the times they are a changing back" he ripped the guitar walking around playing harmonica well with one of those awkward headgear things and a wireless mic I thought he killed it.
7th he brought it down for this one and got sentimental talking about how he wrote this song called Josephine as a way to lock down his lady it was a cute story and an awesome song. That Vicky is one lucky lady, fuck what am I saying? they're both fucking hot as shit. Way to go you two! and if any of youse dudes got a girl named Josephine, Chris Cornell is basically just handing you the panty combo on this one so listen up.
8th then he pulled out a big gun and drops muhfuckin Fell on Black Days which translates surprisingly well to the solo acoustic cello accompanied format it was pretty awesome I hope you guys get a chance to hear it. Apparently this song is actually the reason Bryan Gibson is paying with him, this is the song that he posted his arrangement of and Chris heard it and it was fucking kismet guys... l'chaim!!
9th song here he throws a shout out to all the grungers sporting Soundgarden shirts and tells a story about dropping acid watching fireworks and indian canoes or some shit, anyways this was just a way for him to transition into 4th of July and it was rad.
10th song up next a little acoustic Audioslave with Doesn't Remind Me, really brought me back guys. 2005, that was a good year.
11 was the second half of an Audioslave rock block with Be Yourself.
12th song and you might think my man would be shown signs of slowing down here around the 90 minute mark but you would be fuckin wrong guy ok? God dammit if he doesn't bust into Say Hello to Heaven and that song is the jam. I really hope I get a chance to see Temple of the Dog but tickets are ricdeezulous. Chris if your reading this hook me up man! and you'll get so much more of this rife ass commentary oh you'll love it.
13 I was especially stoked for this one because as I mentioned earlier this song was actually the first Soundgarden song I ever heard, and I'm sure you remember what that was and yes you were right it was Blow up the Outside World and while I still prefer the original version it was damn good acoustic and towards the end he starts busting into this crazy reverb delay drenched loop layered fuckin trippy ass mahareeshy middle eastern chant thing that was sick I wish I could have snuck a closer peak at his pedal board to see what he was looping with but it sounded good! If you ever asked yourself if Chris loop the answer, yes, Chris yes loop ( jeeze chill its a little inside joke between me and one of the four people who actually will read this and if you don't get it you obviously no loop).
14 as if he could sense that we were all getting a little too juiced up on all the smash hit super jams he slowed down again like a pro with an ably performed rendition of his solo piece Let Your Eyes Wander.
15 up next he rolls into a story about how he hated the James Bond movies until Daniel Craig came along, also how a black and white scene of DC beating the shit out of two dudes in a toilet was what convinced him to agree to writing the theme for the movie. I for one am glad he did its a kick ass bond song I liked way better than Alicia Keyes (sorry alicia you still my girl boo!) thats right up next was You Know my Name.
16th song was I am the Highway which needs no description its a fuckin awesome song y'all. GO CLASS OF 2003!!!
17th the was another song from Euphoria Morning called When Im Down and this was a song he used the turntables to play along to a vinyl pressing of the original piano performance by the late Natasha Schneider. I could think of a million ways for this to go wrong or get weird but he pulls it off and it was, so good.
18 this is when he busts into a sudo Johnny Cash riders in the sky version of Rusty Cage which was a little awkweird but he got it workin and everybody in the house claps along.
19 This was for me one of the highlights of the night because I absolutely love this song and with the cello and the whole crowd singing along it was something sweet. Black Hole Sun was number nineteen, btw at this point were 131 minutes in and he hasn't hardly taken a break except to talk a little and maybe drink water once or twice I'm assuming because I never actually saw him do it. This song got a huge applause and how could it not? its fucking black hole sun people sheesh.
20th song was Hunger Strike and it was tits can I just say how weird it is that they never toured that album at all?! Wikipedia says they only ever played one full set in Seattle and like one other time where they played three songs at a Spinal Tap show!
21st song was one of his solo numbers The Keeper a mellow plucker but a solid tune.
22 he goes on to tell a story about an old guy who sold him a car but broke the radio to make him only listen to jesus music and and christian radio that was all about poor people giving money to the church, it was a perfect segue into Wooden Jesus.
23 this was a crazy little part of the night he starts talking about how he wanted to cover a U2 song one time you know that one song? One. So he googles the lyrics and without realizing it he's singing Metallica's One to the tune of U2 he didn't say it exactly like that but you get the idea, anyways thats what we got. It was a bit stilted but he crammed em together and pretty much made it happen. I mean considering Metallicas's One is pretty much a prime example of a perfect song it was a bit like spitting in the face of god but the judges allowed it and he carried on the with only a minor penalty.
24 at this point he walks off stage and says goodnight but everybody knows he's not going anywhere (except for a few dummies that start walking out and he grills em when he walks back out) but they still scream their heads off and cheer for him to come back so he comes back and brings out his older brother Peter and sits back while Peter says some kind words about his baby bro and gets the crowd riled up to wish him a happy birthday. Then he rips into a cover of Piano Man which is a tough one but he does a respectable job with it. You know he doesn't sound totally unlike his brother, dude can belt it out.
25 Through The Window off Higher Truth brought the energy down and sounded great with the cello.
26th song was a dark lilting rendition of Billie Jean and it was bad ass! best cover of the night i thought. Sounded like a completely different song but yet you could imagine it being a song he had written. With the cello and his voice working together, shit! damn good cover.
27th song was Seasons which interestingly was in the movie of Man of Steel which I thought was a kick ass flick but I do not remember this song in it I guess I have to watch it again.
28 was Call Me a Dog good fucking temple of the dog song.
29th song was Higher Truth and it is just about that time of the night, before playing Chris thanks the crowd and does the obligatory this town rocks I'm coming back soon speech. This was the song he closed it out with and he finished off the song by jumping down another loop delay rabbit hole and layering down his voice and guitar until it just became this mass of sound which droned on until the crowd quieted down and they dropped the needle on another record to play him off I believe the song was Jeff Becks version of Morning Dew which is an awesome song about the dialog between the last man and woman left alive on earth after a global apocalypse.
So, that was it I could go on to tell you about how I packed my shit up and went home or how I wish I took a lot more pictures I just didn't want to be "that guy" regardless I think I've already way exceeded the recommended length for a blog post, thank you for reading (if you even managed to get this far) and a big thanks again to everyone involved. Im not sure if and when this dvd/live footage will become available or if we will ever be able to see it but I will for sure put up an update if and when it does. My apologies to anyone that was offended as they read deeper into this post and things got weirder and filled with a surprising amount of swear words I'm a little out of it its 2 in the morning as I try to write the last of this. If you have any more questions feel free to leave a comment or hit me up on any of the social links placed below and I'll be happy to answer any of your questions or criticisms and if you want to have your band or event in the same league as the mighty Chris Cornell and get recorded LIVE! by Spineshaker Productions! you can email at info@spineshakerproductions.com or just click the button below.
Cheers!
-Jesse