Call Me No One - Last Parade

 
I love Sevendust.  I mean, I really, really love them.  I consider them to be massively under-rated, which I attribute to them being lumped in with the nu-metal crowd when they emerged in the late '90's/early '00's.  But hey, people called Deftones nu-metal as well.  All I know is that I associate that particular genre tag with a certain pretty terrible band whose lead singer (if you can call it that) spazzes out when someone touches his hat.  Anyway, Sevendust are a hard / rock / metal band, and a very good one at that.

However, Last Parade is not a Sevendust album, and possibly it's unfair that I've begun this review with a spiel about how great Sevendust are.  But, if not for my love of Sevendust, I'm not sure I would've discovered this particular gem.  You see, Call Me No One is the lovechild of 7D guitarist Clint Lowery and 7D drummer Morgan Rose.  Lowery released a couple of solo acoustic EPs under the guise of Hello Demons Meet Skeletons, and this was originally envisaged as a more electric version of that, with Morgan on board.

Reading between the lines conveyed on social media, at some point fairly early in the creative process the project seems to have taken on a life of its own, and the end result was that Clint and Morgan wrote, recorded, produced and mixed an album's worth of material in a very short period of time - under a month.

My initial reaction to trying to get an album done in that sort of window was, oh god, I hope it doesn't turn out like One By One, which the Foo Fighters mostly recorded in two weeks, and which was mostly filler.

Thankfully, I was way off the mark there.  Not even close.

Last Parade is a very finely-crafted piece of hard rock, and the best album I've heard so far this year.  It's melodic, accessible and catchy, but still quite clearly hard rock.  To put it simply, 7D fans will enjoy it, but at its core this is a great rock album irrespective of the other band the members happen to be in, and it's got a huge amount of crossover appeal.  I guess a potential analogy here is that CMNO is the Queens of the Stone Age to 7D's Kyuss. 

What really sets this record apart isn't Morgan's drumming (outstanding), or Clint's guitar work (ditto... and some great solos too), or even Clint's vocal work (which was largely unheralded and fits the songs extremely well) - it's the quality and variation of the songwriting.  And maybe we should've expected that from a pair who have combined on many of 7D's greatest moments, but the songwriting here is a noticeably different beast.

Many of the songs here have an instant infectiousness to them - they catch your ear and refuse to let go.  But when you look past that immediacy and listen a bit more carefully, you notice all sorts of clever things happening, like the vocal harmonisation in The World is Dead, the guitar layering in Thunderbird, the way the groove in Pleased to Meet You is so effortless because of the notes that Morgan Rose isn't playing, the way guitar and drums dance around the vocals to emphasise the post-intro build in closing track Last Parade.

And that neat balance and attention to detail isn't just on individual songs - it's also true of the album as a whole.  There are direct, 'fuck yeah!' rock moments like Biggest Fan and Hillbilly, but they're balanced with more introspective moments like Broken Record.  There are some sweeping, massive-sounding songs like All's Well, Soapbox and Last Parade which unfold beautifully, but also enhance the immediacy of the more catchy songs that they sit alongside.

2012 is only half done, but it's going to take something pretty special to dislodge Last Parade from the top of my charts.  Great stuff.

Pearl Jam 20 Soundtrack - review

I'm off to see Pearl Jam 20 on the big screen tonight - and I'm certainly looking forward to it.  Pearl Jam have always had a special place in my music collection - I grew up with their early albums and I like a lot of stuff from their later albums too.  I finally got the chance to see them live in Auckland a couple of years ago, and what a fantastic show it was (and they played Severed Hand too, STOKED!).

It's hard to imagine a better choice of director for the film than Cameron Crowe (who was responsible for Singles and Almost Famous).  But in the meantime, I'm tiding myself over with the soundtrack, comprising a slew of Pearl Jam live recordings, demos and rarities

Pearl Jam releasing live stuff is nothing new, really.  Since Live on Two Legs came out, the band pioneered the concept of making concert recordings available to fans - first on CD, then later digitally.  In true Pearl Jam fashion, this was because they didn't see why fans should have to tolerate expensive, shitty quality bootlegs when they could make cheaper, soundboard-quality recordings available (remember kids, this was before camera phones and YouTube).  Hell, I have 9 or 10 of their shows from various tours myself, including that 2009 Auckland show.

But you know, the (unintended) consequence of that is that it's hard to get excited about a new Pearl Jam live album because there's so much quality stuff already floating around.  Unless it's something a little different, like the mostly-acoustic Live at Benaroya Hall from 2004.

PJ20 is different for a number of reasons.  Firstly - it's a soundtrack to the documentary.  Having not yet seen the film, I can't really say a lot on this particular angle.  But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, PJ20 is career-spanning, and that is what makes it really interesting.

The first disc puts together 14 live recordings in (basically) chronological order, and it's fascinating listening.  See, there is a version of Alive that dates back to when the band was still named Mookie Blaylock.  And equally, there's a version of Just Breathe that was recorded only last year.  There's a version of Garden that was recorded in some tiny venue in Zurich and you can hear the crowd talking in the background.  There's a version of Black lifted from their hard-to-find MTV Unplugged performance.

Comparing those earlier shows with a huge 2010 performance of Betterman from Madison Square Garden where the crowd sing the first verse highlights just how popular the band have become - despite being content to follow their own creative path, which led in a different direction from the massive commercial success of their first three albums.

Ironically, it's a track originally by Mother Love Bone (which featured a pre-Pearl Jam Jeff Ament and Stone Gossard) that provides the biggest highlight of the first disc, an awesome performance of Crown of Thorns recorded in Las Vegas during PJ's 10th anniversary concert.

The second disc has some live material as well, but it's more oriented towards demos.  Generally I don't find a lot to like about demo versions - but there are some gems here, such as a rugged demo version of the Temple of the Dog track Say Hello 2 Heaven that feels so unbelievably 1990 you'd swear you were listening to it on a cassette, and a similarly cool demo of Times of Trouble, its loping main riff somehow made more enjoyable by the sense it's just a few guys mucking around in the studio recording a demo.

From the same era, there's a highly amusing (further) nod to the Seattle scene in the form of a demo cover of Alice in Chains' It Ain't Like That, that carries on until someone starts noodling the main riff from Put You Down.  Later highlights include a solo instrumental acoustic performance of Given to Fly by Mike McCready.

I get the impression that the second disc is intended to give some context to Pearl Jam in the studio versus Pearl Jam live - the first half is all demo versions concluding with a really dark Jeff Ament demo of Nothing As It Seems from 1999, which segues straight into a 2001 live performance of that song.  It wouldn't surprise me at all if these tracks were used as a backdrop to the film's coverage of the 2000 Roskilde tragedy, given the sombre nature of the song and the fact that the dates of the demo and live performances straddle that sad, sad moment.

The remainder of the second disc is a selection of well-chosen and relatively recent live performances, aptly concluding with a great version of live staple Rearviewmirror.

All things considered, it's not a record that will win the band any new fans, nor is it intended to.  The whole premise of PJ20 is to celebrate one of the most influential and unique rock bands of the past two decades, because, frankly, you get the distinct impression that they're the sort of guys who wouldn't make a big deal of it themselves and are happy just writing and playing music.  And in that regard I think the soundtrack succeeds admirably - with memorable live and demo recordings spanning the band's career, and highlighting their evolution.  I'd go so far as to say it's essential listening for any long-time fan of the band.

Rose Hill Drive - Americana

Every now and then, an album comes along that reminds me exactly why I love music so much.  You know, an album that you can't bear to stop once you've hit play, and once you get to the end, you just have to hear it all again.

Rose Hill Drive's new album Americana is one such album.

Ironically, it almost never happened.  The band from Boulder, Colorado went on hiatus in late 2008 after a relentless schedule that included a ton of touring, recording two albums - 2006's self-titled debut and 2008's Moon is the New Earth - and the pressure of living up to a ton of industry hype from the likes of Rolling Stone.  As much as the band was deserving of endorsements from the likes of Pete Townshend, the classic rock influences were both the band's biggest strength and their achilles heel - musically, the band spent so much time trying to emulate their heroes that they were in danger of losing their own sound.

So it was a promising sign when, not only did RHD re-emerge in June 2010, but they did so with a new member and a line-up reshuffle.  The addition of Jimmy Stofer on bass has allowed Jacob Sproul to move to rhythm guitar, and turned the power trio into a quartet.  More importantly, it's allowed RHD to develop their own sound and god damn is it good.

Don't get me wrong here - their first two albums were a blast, but Americana is something else.  The thing that immediately struck me about it is simply the sheer exuberance - RHD really sound like a band with a new lease of life, a band that is having fun.

You can hear it in the rock-out moments... you can just imagine the band grinning at each other as they cheekily hold the last note of the riff when Telepathic gets all low-slung and riffy about 3 minutes in.  You can hear it lyrically as Jacob Sproul places his tongue firmly in his cheek on Speed Dial - "You used to be number 1... now you're number 2.  You've never met 3, but 4 says she knows you.".  You can hear it in the zany guitar solos from brother Daniel, particularly on Psychoanalyst, which sounds just as madcap as the song's video looks.



But even with all that raw exuberance, Americana is also surprisingly clever.  The songs frequently keep the listener guessing, taking unexpected twists and turns - as does the album itself.  In contrast to the gleeful electric mayhem that populates most of the record, the last two tracks are acoustically led and thoughtfully constructed.  For every vocal LOL moment like Speed Dial, there's a wry, acerbic jab - like on the title track: "If it's real I don't care if it's plastic".

And yeah, the classic rock influences are still audible, and there might be shades of Jack White in some of the guitar solos, but fundamentally the way RHD sound on this album is refreshing, original and entirely unique. 

In a nutshell, Americana is a rambunctious, clever and frequently exhilarating slice of rock music that begs repeat use of the repeat button.  I won't be at all surprised if this ends up being my favourite album of 2011.  It's just too much fun.

Note: for the next little while, you can listen to the whole thing here courtesy of AOL's listening party.

The return of Head Like A Hole

Head Like A Hole's reunion in 2008 came as a bit of a surprise.  Here was a band that had split almost a decade ago, for the usual rock and roll reasons, and had probably all moved on and got jobs or benefits or whatever it took to pay the bills.  I was away at the time and pretty disappointed to miss the reunion show at the Powerstation - particularly given that their contemporaries Supergroove had reformed about a year earlier and put on an absolute belter of a reunion show at the Kings Arms.

There was always a lot to like about HLAH.  For a brief history, check out "The Head Like A Hole Story in about 200 words by Nigel Regan".  They rocked hard.  They had a charismatic front man in Nigel 'Booga' Beazley.  They had their own quite distinct, unique sound, and wrote songs with quirky titles like Fish Across Face and Spanish Goat Dancer.  They also did a riotously good Bruce Springsteen cover.



Anyway their reunion was both a blessing and a reminder that New Zealand has really produced shit-all in the way of decent bands since that brief spurt in the 90's that gave us Shihad, HLAH and Supergroove.  OK, well admittedly Beastwars are pretty cool too, but that's about it.

But now, on the back of that reunion, HLAH have recorded a new album, Blood Will Out, their first since HLAH IV: Are You Gonna Kiss It Or Shoot It?  It could have sucked, as many reunion albums do.  Thankfully it does not.  In fact, it is rather good.

Blood Will Out is a swaggering slice of hard rock.  There is plenty of the trademark sweaty, greasy HLAH groove, but at the same time the songs somehow feel consistently a bit tighter, in a way the band only occasionally hinted at in the past (on the likes of Comfortably Shagged and A Crying Shame).  It is possibly the only HLAH record thus far where it is consistently the music and the songs that shine, without the aid of any supporting gimmickry (this has previously included chainsaws, excerpts from porn movies, and a cover of a song from Grease).

And some of those songs really do shine.  The album opens strongly with a barrage that includes singles Swagger of Thieves and Glory Glory, both of which showcase Booga's trademark growl - if anything he sounds better with age. 

But it is the middle where things really step up, courtesy of two particularly mighty tracks: Valhalla (10,000 BC) and Death of a Friend.  The former - surely a contender to pop up on season 2 of The Almighty Johnsons - is a rollicking, up-tempo barn-burner of a track which grooves along from guitar solo to guitar solo whilst never sounding lost or losing any of its considerable impact.  The latter is a sludgy, Sabbath-y doom extravaganza that would make Tony Iommi proud.  It is entirely possible that these are the two best songs that HLAH has ever written, so it is probably fitting that they are the centrepiece of the album.

Rounding out the record is the Monsta trilogy - the lurching stomp of Monsta X, the catchy almost-pop of Hardest Battle (Monsta Y) and the synthetic grind of Blood Will Out (Monsta Z).  It all ends almost too soon with (unexpectedly) an acoustic closer, In Articulo Mortis. 

Blood Will Out is an easy album to get into, and a hard one to put down.  It's refreshing to see a band with the benefit of extra years and wisdom put that to use crafting some damn good songs and not just rehashing past glories.  This is the best kind of comeback album - one that will appeal to HLAH's old fans whilst hopefully also winning some new ones.  And more power to them.

Black Stone Cherry - Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

You know that great feeling you get when you discover a new band that you think you're really going to like?  Well, I had that after hearing Black Stone Cherry's Lonely Train for the first time a few years ago - it is a truly kick-ass rock song.



See, what I love about these good ole Kentucky boys is that they tip their hat to the old while ushering in the new.  You can hear the influence of the Black Crowes, Led Zeppelin and Lynyrd Skynyrd.  But then you can also hear them putting an almost-metal spin on some of those influences, throwing in some wall-of-sound style riffs and some hellacious wah-solos (see the above at 2:20).

Not everything they've written is as good as Lonely Train, of course, but it should give you some idea.

Anyway, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is Black Stone Cherry's third album, after their hard-rockin' self-titled debut, and follow-up Folklore and Superstition which took a similar direct approach but added in a few ballads too.

At this point I should add that I generally don't like it when BSC do ballads.  Their efforts aren't bad songs per se, but unfortunately they smack a little of Nickelback-style radio rock.  This is a band that is undoubtedly at their best when are in full-on beer-drinking and hell-raising mode.  Or bourbon-drinking, for that matter - they are from Kentucky after all.

And in that regard, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea largely plays to their strengths.  I mean, I don't know if they were drinking a lot of bourbon when they recorded it but the ass-kicking intent is certainly there.  Most of the record is a riffing, grooving, hard-hitting effort loaded with air-guitar solos.  By this I mean actual solos that demand playing of air-guitar.  Not solos actually played on an air-guitar (which often prove hard to hear).

The tracks that immediately jump out are lead single and album opener White Trash Millionaire (opening lyric: "I got a Trans Am in primer paint") and Blame it on the Boom Boom (you'll thank me for not spoiling the hilarious lyrics on this one for you).   The former showcases pretty much everything that is great about this band.  And on the topic of the vocals, after watching the video below, I've come to the conclusion that babyface Chris Robinson looks nothing like his voice sounds.



And what a cool voice Robinson does have - massive power but a ton of soul as well and a distinctive Southern flavour.  The only other singer I've ever heard with quite the same qualities was former Brand New Sin singer Joe Altier.

My personal favourite track at the moment is Killing Floor, which has some heavy Alice in Chains influences and uses voicebox effects to create a particularly savage guitar sound that would scare the shit out of Peter Frampton.  Combine this with a huge groove, and some sneaky NIN-esque treatments on the backing vocals and you have a massive track (albeit one with some very nice attention to detail too).  Even if the sound engineer is pouring more fuel on the fire of the Loudness Wars.

There are songs that will make you tap your feet (In My Blood).  There are songs that will make you bang your head (Let Me See You Shake).  There are some reasonably blatant (and slightly forgettable) radio moments in the middle - Won't Let Go and Like I Roll.  But then there is also the immaculately written Stay, which is both radio-friendly and a very good song (and a worthy exception to my general rule that this - or any? - band should avoid radio-friendly songs).

Sure, its an album of reasonably straightforward three to four-minute rock songs.  But that's part of its appeal too - honest, gutsy, straight-up hard rock.  Nothing pretentious or showy, just four Kentucky dudes throwing it down and doing a damn good job of it too for the most part.

Anyway, you can check it out for yourself too because the whole album can be streamed here.

Foo Fighters - Wasting Light review

Expectations can be a tricky thing. They can weigh down very good albums... and their absence can make above-average albums sound a lot better. New releases by iconic names are held to a much higher standard of account than a random chance discovery of a record by an artist we haven't heard before.

I'm grappling with this a little bit, because - for better or worse - I had a ton of expectations riding on the Foo Fighters' new album Wasting Light. Hard not to, after hearing the lead single Rope, the quasi-single White Limo and the 30-second teaser of Bridge Burning. Combine that with a ton of nostalgia (the self-titled debut was one of the first albums I ever got, and still a huge favourite), and you can hopefully understand how I really hoped the Foos would produce a sensational record.

Don't get me wrong here - I'm not saying that Wasting Light is not a good album. In fact, it is a very good album, with a number of fantastically good tracks. It just falls ever so slightly short of perfection though, for exactly the same reason that every Foo Fighters album post-Colour and the Shape has been an under-performer. Front-loading.

Let's recap. The self-titled debut and The Colour and the Shape are both consistent, balanced, excellent albums. There is Nothing Left to Lose starts with the utterly brilliant Stacked Actors and, aside from Generator and Aurora, never even gets close to those heights subsequently - and then a pretty similar pattern is repeated on the next three albums (substitute All My Life, Best of You, and The Pretender accordingly). There are some amazing songs on all of those later albums, but they're not great albums.

To be fair, the front-loading is a lot less noticeable here than on some of those examples. There are some very good songs on both halves of the album. It's just that on the back half, there's just a teeny-weeny bit of filler that becomes that much more noticeable given how unbelievably awesome the first half is.

And oh how awesome the first half is. It really is. The first two tracks are both incendiary, brilliantly-constructed rock songs. Opener Bridge Burning kicks in with a huge crescendo, dive-bombing riff and Dave Grohl screaming "These are my famous last words" before locking into a tight up-tempo groove a-la Monkey Wrench. Some great use of dynamics and just the right amount of use of the main riff/refrain/call to headbang keep the song incredibly interesting throughout.

Lead single Rope is equally brilliant, albeit for different reasons. Aside from being damn catchy, the use of clever musical counterpoints here is really, really nice. The opening guitar line - and most of the verse - has a slightly melancholy tone to it but then every fourth bar there's a great little twist that adds a real sense of urgency - either a punchy double-time drum/guitar-combination fill, or a slight delay followed by a big power-chord just to keep the headbangers interested. And then on a more macro scale, most of the song has a fairly constructed, radio-friendly vibe to it, but then there is a big rock freak-out mid-song which is a great contrast. If ever one single song has showcased all the many unique, enjoyable facets of the Foo Fighters - this is probably it.

Dear Rosemary changes things up nicely, more of a bluesy, broody mid-tempo number with a bit of help from Bob Mould and some nice stereo guitar interplay. Actually the three-guitar attack (thanks to the return of Pat Smear) is a highlight throughout - there's some really nice guitar layering and detail on a number of the songs.

And then White Limo. Hands up who remembers those great early Foos songs like Wattershed, Weenie Beenie, and The Colour and the Shape (which ironically doesn't appear on the album of the same name)? Well, White Limo is a return to the tradition of 'let's make a really fast, thrashy, rocking song with distorted, nonsensical vocals, which is completely awesome'. All I can say here is that if I was to make a list of my top 10 songs of all time, White Limo would almost certainly be on it. I do my best to headbang along in awe, and sing the only bit I can actually decipher "Go....... limo". Go, you good limo thing.

So how to follow that up? Well with a completely contrasting but almost as excellent track, Arlandria. This one, you can sing along to the whole way, and in fact you'll probably want to (the fact you can actually decipher the words makes it considerably easier, too). Insidiously catchy, with some great dynamic shifts.

And here's where the quality drops ever so slightly. These Days, Back & Forth and A Matter of Time are all decent, catchy tracks, but in contrast to their predecessors which see the band really pushing themselves, they sound just a little bit Foos-by-numbers. You might swear you've heard them before.

But then the closing trio really raise the bar again - Miss the Misery is a great song built around a fantastic main riff, and it's followed by the plaintive, slow-building I Should Have Known. Closing track Walk is ever so slightly reminiscent of New Way Home - albeit with the quiet-loud, slow-fast buildup replaced by some nice guitar interplay and Dave Grohl screaming "I never wanna die!".

Wasting Light is a really good album and one I'm sure will get a lot of repeat listens. If its third quarter was just a little more interesting, it would be a truly exceptional, career-defining album.

But you know, maybe I should just stop prattling on about that, crank it up loud, and enjoy it. Sure does seem like that's how the band intended it.

Soundgarden: Live on I-5 review

Up until now, the whole Soundgarden reunion has been a bit of smoke and mirrors. There was a new track, Black Rain, but actually that was an old out-take from the Badmotorfinger sessions. There was a so-called "new album", Telephantasm, but that was actually a greatest hits collection. And according to setlist.fm, there have been a whopping 5 live performances since the reformation was first hinted at on January 1, 2010.

This didn't do a lot to allay my skepticism about the reunion. Not because I don't think they're a great band - they sure as hell are - but because I consider Soundgarden to be one of the few bands that actually timed their exit well. They produced a run of three great albums (Badmotorfinger, Superunknown and Down on the Upside), continued to put on great live shows through 1996 and early 1997, and then called it a day. There was no gradual decline in quality, no disastrous album a la St. Anger or Risk, no terminal rotation of band members until the line-up becomes unrecognisable. No, these guys went out as one of the great musical forces of their era.

The band members had previously downplayed chances of a reunion for those reasons. History is littered with bands that have shat on their own legacies. And in the present case, I personally didn't see a lot of upside, apart from distracting Chris Cornell from producing shite like Scream.

This live album hasn't totally changed my mind, but it has made me question those views just a little bit. Live on I-5 is a great live document of a band at the top of their game, and I'll admit it has got me excited about the possibility of seeing them perform live again.

It's not hard to make a live album. But it's hard to make a really good, memorable live album. By this I mean one that doesn't come off as just 'greatest hits with crowd noise'.

I reckon Soundgarden have done it though. Live on I-5 has all those little things that can make a live album great, and it has them in spades. A great tracklist, subtle little twists and nuances here and there, jamming (but not to the point of overindulgence), a couple of nice covers, and a boatload of intensity.

It opens with Spoonman, you know, the song that they accidentally wrote in 7/4 time about a dude called Artis the Spoonman. I still don't know understand how you can accidentally write a song in 7/4. But it is a great song. And like many of the singles that pop up on I-5, it just sounds gruntier live - as do Outshined and Rusty Cage (dedicated to Johnny Cash, who of course covered the song).

But of course Soundgarden were never just about raw grunt. And that's best illustrated here with a near-unrecognisable, sparse, somewhat eerie cover of the Beatles' Helter Skelter which metamorphoses into the uplifting Boot Camp. This is no gimmick either, it's actually an incredibly clever piece of interpretation and performance. To take a Beatles classic, put a unique and enjoyable spin on it, and then blend it into a song with an entirely different mood and tone... now that's some impressive musicianship. Oh, and they do a great (and rather more faithful) cover of Search and Destroy too.

What made me particularly happy was that not only do my two (arguably) favourite Soundgarden tracks pop up on here, but the performances of both are exceptional. Firstly, Slaves and Bulldozers. You know the opening guitar riff, the slightly creepy-sounding one? Well, Kim Thayil bends the notes just a little bit harder, a little bit further, to the point where it actually sent chills down my spine. It's a classic example of a band taking a great song and pushing it just that little bit further live. There's just so much to like about this performance - Thayil's theatrics, the incredible groove that Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd lock into from the opening note, Chris Cornell throwing everything into the vocals... fantastic.

And the other really great example is Jesus Christ Pose, the album's closer. It's sonically pretty different to Slaves and Bulldozers - fast, thrashy and in-your-face, as opposed to Slaves' far more groove-driven rise-and-fall. But it comes off equally well - there's a little extra aggression and it's just messy enough to make it feel like a really great full-on live performance.

From start to finish, the band sound like a very tight musical unit, a savage weapon. The mix is really nicely balanced across guitar, bass, drums and vocals and it really gives you an appreciation that at any one time there could be four completely different things happening - such as on Slaves and Bulldozers where Matt Cameron lays down the rhythm, Ben Shepherd is playing the main refrain, Kim Thayil shreds and Chris Cornell powers through the vocals. And despite having four entirely different things going on, the whole sounds and feels incredibly well-balanced.

There are one or two slightly dubious inclusions - I've personally never rated either Dusty or Head Down amongst Soundgarden's better tracks and I would have preferred, say, Superunknown and Rhinosaur.

But as a whole package, this is a very powerful live document of a great band, and after a few listens, my scepticism about the reunion has been at least a little bit allayed, purely because now I realise I might just get the chance to hear Soundgarden live again. And this time I might be old enough to appreciate it a bit more than I did at the Big Day Out 1997.

You can listen to the whole thing here.