Thursday, August 28, 2014

Cold Cave, Soundgarden and Nine Inch Nails: huge show at Wheatland's Sleeptrain Amphitheater, and an open letter to Chris Cornell

Soundgarden, Wheatland CA, August 2014
Audience watching Soundgarden
I thought Soundgarden were wonderful. Seriously. Chris Cornell was totally in control, his vocal range impressive, and the performance was electric. The set wasn't long enough... it should have gone on all night.

"Jesus Christ Pose" was stunning. Finishing up with "Black Hole", and then "Beyond The Wheel", was sheer genius. The whole show was electric. In awe...

Soundgarden are a true, in-it-for-your-lifetime, rock band. They're alive and live and involved and in tune with the fans and the audience: it's a show, it's a rock concert, and I very much want to see them again. Now. Today.

For me? Soundgarden could have been the whole show, the headliner, and I would have been happy.

(Dear Chris Cornell, I would very much treasure the opportunity to photograph Soundgarden at some point in the future. Your show was amazing, and it would be an honour to capture a small fragment of the energy and light with my camera to share with the world. Yours truly, Alison Toon | Photographer.)

Nine Inch Nails August 2014
Audience watchng Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails were immaculate, perfect, totally in control. Rhythms that reach into the soul of ancestry. A light show that aligned totally with the sound and the atmosphere; music and vocals that (apart from the obvious song) would be perfect in a cinematic setting. A crowd enthralled. We were dancing on the lawn at the top of the hill, and I don't think anyone left early to escape the traffic.

Nine Inch Nails were perfect in every way... a little too perfect for me. I was reminded of a Eurythmics show I saw, years back, when the band was so good, so tight, so self-contained, that there seemed to be an invisible barrier at the edge of the stage; I could have been watching them on a cinema screen, and had the same emotions. That's how I felt about NIN last night; we didn't quite touch. Almost, but not quite.

But maybe it's me.

And that's what live music is all about: listening to the music, finding what you like best, and just enjoying the show. And I did enjoy it, very much so.

NIN's and Soundgarden's tour continues: see http://nin.com/ or http://soundgardenworld.com/tour/ for more dates. Really, REALLY worth seeing!

(Not forgetting a shout out to Cold Cave, who opened the show; reminiscent of Depeche Mode, Wesley Eisold and Amy Lee filled the venue with song and sound and much more than should be possible from a two-person setup. I'm going to listen to more of their music.)

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