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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
January 27 2013 – Soundgarden continued their 2 night stand at Toronto's Sound Academy on Saturday night. Needless to say the venue was packed at 100% capacity and this show sold out in a few seconds after it went on sale. There is no doubt that Soundgarden would sell out bigger venues like The Molson Amphitheater or the Air Canada Center, so the 3200 people in attendance were very fortunate to get in. We had sky high expectations for tonight and the concert was our first "Must-See Gig" of 2013 (check out our list of other concerts we highly endorse for a guaranteed good time here).
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| Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
Tonight there was no opening act and at 8:22 pm the eager crowd roared as the lights dimmed and the intro of Searching With My Good Eye Closed kicked in. The band broke up in 1997 and regrouped a couple of years ago and last year released their first studio album in 15 years entitled King Animal. We here at T-Mak World really liked the album and in fact named it as our number 6 album of 2012 (You can read T-Mak World's Top 10 Albums of 2012 here). As expected tonight's setlist was very heavy on the new album and in the end 8 of the 13 songs on King Animal were played. Their most successful album Superunknown was also very well represented with 7 of its 15 songs being played tonight.
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| Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 (Photo: Amanda Blasdell) |
The crowd was as loud as any the Sound Academy has ever seen, and Cornell noted that we were louder than the crowd yesterday, although the crowd yesterday smelled like allot more like weed. Major highlights and singalongs were Jesus Christ Pose, Spoonman, Outshined, and Rusty Cage. The night had an eclectic mix of the band's hits and more obscure cuts, but the most noticeable omission was the band's biggest hit – Black Hole Sun. Incredible that a band chooses not to play THE song – their most recognizable and commercially successful tune, but they did play it on the previous night's gig. This tour has Soundgarden mixing up the setlist quite a bit so one doesn't know exactly what to expect on any given night.
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
The Sound Academy venue was a mixed blessing for the concert. It was incredible because it is so much better to see a mega band in a small venue due to the intimacy, but as usual general admission means you have to deal with what I call the "drunken entitled" -guys who think they can just push their way to the front even when everyone there is shoulder to shoulder already. Annoying but that's the way it goes at small venues that are general admission.
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| Merch stand for Soundgarden 2013 US Winter Tour (didn't know that Toronto was US) |
Verdict: 5 out of 5 – One of the best hard rock (oh yeah its called grunge) bands of all time at a small venue after a 15+ year absence (with the exception of a few gigs here and there) proved to be epic. This was our first big concert of the year and one that will easily be on our Top 10 Concerts of 2013 list at the end of the year. Next time they are in Toronto they will be selling out the big venues.
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
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| Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
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| Kim Thayil of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
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| Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 |
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 (Photo: Amanda Blasdell) |
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 (Photo: Amanda Blasdell) |
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| Chris Cornell of Soundgarden – Toronto January 26 2013 (Photo: Amanda Blasdell) |
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Let's hope we see more big name bands in small venues this year..
They really are mixing up the setlists.
On Friday they started with Been away too long which was funny because when we got home on Letterman they played the same song. (Show from last year.)
IMO I thought the best song was Black Hole Sun and second for me would have been the movie song, Live to Rise.
All in all a great show in a small venue for this band.
I sit in the handicapped section on the right side and going to the washroom is almost immpossible after the concert starts. My step son took almost an hour to get back to where we were sitting.