My ears are still bleeding form yesterday's show 🙂 A great band, a great show! The venue was CEPSUM, which is a local university's venue for sports events. Most bigger names do their shows in the Bell Centre in Montreal, which is a terrible, terrible place for a rock concert. It's all iron and tin and resonances a lot of noise. CEPSUM was different. In this case, the fact that Audioslave are not (yet) that big a name is of fans' advantage. We got to see them in a cozier venue with better sound. I was on the ground level, I believe this is the only place where one should be in a rock concert 😉
There were two opening bands. I was too late for the first one, but did heard the second - Seether. They played very well, with a lot of energy, although... you know, not my type. They did a Nirvana cover - "Drain You".
As expected Audioslave did played some Soundgarden and Rage Against The Machine songs, but most of the songs were Audioslave's. After about 5 songs from the new Out of Exile album, they did Soundgarden's Spoonman while the the scene background was showing that thing from the cover of the Badmotorfinger album. Right after that the surprise was Temple of the Dog's "Hungry". Then after the encore break, Chris Cornell alone played a acoustic versions of Black Hole Sun and another Soundgarden's song I cannot recall the name of. As for RATM's songs they did two in the main part of the concert and then at about the end of the encores, they blew the place up with "Killing in the name of".
As for Audioslave's songs, I cannot really tell which ones they played. The way I listen to music is when I find something new I like, I listen to it all the time. At some point the different songs blur into one and I cannot really distinguish one from the other. I've been looping both Audioslave's albums for a few weeks and I pretty much know the songs by heart, but not by name. I'm sure I shouted the chorus of Like A Stone and I'm almost positive the show ended with Cochise, but that's about it. Oh, and in addition to the songs from their two albums they played a new one, not yet recorded!
The bassist was singing backing vocals on most of the songs, and the drummer did Eddie Vedder's part in "Hungry". I was most impressed by the guitarist. I always am, being an ex-guitarist myself. I was never a RATM fan, so before listening to Audioslave I had no idea what Tom Morello's style is like. Listening to some songs on the radio left me with the impression that he was overdoing the wah-wah effect , which seemed a bit amateurish to me. That is because the wah-wah is so great once you start experimenting with it, that it's very easy to get a little carried away (I know I was accused of wah-wah overuse by fellow band members at the time). Listening carefully to the Audioslave's albums proved my initial impressions wrong. The guitars are actually very good and innovative. And the energy and the enthusiasm in them may make them sound a bit next to amateurish, but that's how you can tell the really good musicians (and not only musicians for that matter) - their playing is not intrusive, but simple and may sound too easy, almost childish. That's only because they are so ... you know, clean and perfect. So it was a great experience to see and hear this novelty guitars live.
In two words - Audioslave are great live and of you have a chance to have them playing in your town, do not hesitate to go!
Oh, another thing, Chris Cornell's vocals! Amazing! Because of the way he sings, the high vocals and all, I was expecting that his voice will get exhaused after the first half of the songs and he'll have problems singing the rest live. No such thing! It was just great to hear him live. Like a guy from the crowd, a big fan apparently, noted: "Chris Cornell, babyyy!"
