Rating: NN
I liked rage against the machineand was ambivalent about Soundgarden, but after Saturday night’s show at the Kool Haus I can say in no uncertain terms that I could live quite happily in a world without Audioslave. Without Zack de la Rocha, the Rage members have found themselves in some boring rock rehash rut, with Chris Cornell half singing and half yelling along.The funk, the rage, the rap, the hip, the hop and the fire have all fizzled. It’s puzzling — and tragic.
The musicianship is still there — Tom Morello is still a great guitarist, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk a rhythm section to be reckoned with — but if I ever saw a worse matchup than that of these guys with Cornell’s post-grunge Americana vocals, it isn’t springing to mind. But that’s just my opinion. A ton of the sold-out crowd of fans felt otherwise.
I know this because several of them kept grabbing my notebook out of my hand and writing stuff in it. So I say fuck it. Let’s let them write the rest of this review, shall we?
Here’s some of what they wrote: “Chris Cornell is hot, attractive hair, appealing, sexy voice. Draws you to him. Suave stage presence.”
“They seem to be lost in a place of music (save the world, music for the people). They want to do so much it seems like they don’t know where to start.”
“Chris Cornell is hot.”
“Chris Cornell is hitting notes that we haven’t seen since the Badmotorfinger album.”
“They produce a powerful ambience, plain and simple.”
“Chris Cornell has his shirt off. Very important. Nice pecs!”
“Love you bad, Chris. However, I want to be fucking rocked by Zack!!! No more fucking sentimental slow shit. At least Zack would have had the fucking place awake!”
Oh, good. It’s not just me. Thanks to all our guest reviewers. Oh yeah, and Audioslave covered Working Man, by Rush.
