It may be hard to believe, but it’s been twenty years since Soundgarden’s breakthrough album, Superunknown, debuted. With five Top 20 singles — including the #1 “Black Hole Sun” — Superunknown brought worldwide acclaim to the most metal of the Seattle bands. To celebrate, Soundgarden is reissuing a remastered version of the album, as well as several deluxe-package versions, and performing the album in full.
Their latest such appearance was at New York’s Webster Hall for an intimate “Citi Presents” performance for 1,500 dedicated fans (and Citicard members). The pit was packed, as was the balcony, while the band crushed each track in front of the famous “screaming elf” image from the album cover. Soundgarden stretched the seventy-minute album out to a full ninety minutes with extended jams, new arrangements and behind-the-scenes stories of the album’s writing and recording process, courtesy of Chris Cornell.
The main floor and balcony bounced enough to make one question the structural integrity of the latter, especially during “Spoonman,” “Kickstand” and “Half.” Cornell’s voice has not lost an ounce of its strength and agility, and hearing the band attack each track with so much fire reignited the relevance of Superunknown.
Returning to raucous applause, the band performed an encore of “Outshined” and “Rusty Cage” from their first album, 1991’s Badmotorfinger. As terrific as they sounded, it’s clearly necessary for the band to tour a little more regularly. Their most recent album, 2012’s King Animal, brought them around on a full-scale tour, and with any luck Soundgarden will hit the road again soon to revel in their entire catalog.
Setlist
1. Let Me Down
2. My Wave
3. Fell On Black Days
4. Mailman
5. Superunknown
6. Head Down
7. Black Hole Sun
8. Spoonman
9. Limo Wreck
10. The Day I Tried to Live
11. Kickstand
12. Fresh Tendrils
13. 4th of July
14. Half
15. Like Suicide
Encore
16. Outshined
17. Rusty Cage
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