Well this has been a pretty amazing music filled week for me but the seeds for this week were planted at the end of 2011. I was searching around for music to buy with my Christmas vouchers. I had created a shortlist of albums and right at the top of the list was Chris Cornells acoustic album 'Songbook' as I'd heard a couple of songs off it. So I bought most of the shortlist and then had a few quid left over and so I started trawling the albums to find something I could buy with the money left on the account. Finally I settled on a Pearl Jam compilation album 'Rearviewmirror'. I've always liked Pearl Jam music but for some reason never bought an album up until then. Both these albums quickly became high on my frequently played music, so much so that I started looking to see who was touring. To my surprise both Chris Cornell and Pearl Jam were in the UK during the summer but I could only really afford to go to one of them so I chose to go see Chris Cornell as I've always been really into the sounds of Soundgarden and Audioslave and the clincher was that I could get tickets to see him at The Birmingham Symphony Hall, a wonderful acoustic treat. At this point I was chuffed to be going to see Chris Cornell but at the same time a bit gutted as I'd be missing Pearl Jam as the classic Pearl Jam songs were starting to be indelibly marked on my psyche. Jump forward a few weeks and my hunger to see Pearl Jam was fuelled further by the showing of the documentary Twenty on BBC 4. As I was trying to formulate a plan to convince my missus that it would be a good idea for me to go and see another concert just a couple of days after Chris Cornell and the ticket would be just shy of 50 quid I was gifted a wonderful opportunity. My concert going buddy emailed me asking would I fancy going to see Pearl Jam on the 21st of June at the MCR Arena and it wouldn't cost me a bean. Turns out he had won an employee incentive prize at work which was two tickets to see Pearl Jam, Get In! I bit his hand off. Strange how things seemed to come together. Basically this made that week in mid June my most eagerly anticpated week for a long time(I think the expected birth of my daughter the only thing that comes to mind at the moment:) ).
Fast Forward to this week
19th June The Birmingham Symphony Hall Chris Cornell
We made sure we got into Birmingham nice and early so we could go find the venue and grab some food before the concert and it has to be said there are plenty of great places to eat and drink close to The Symphony Hall. We were pleasantly surprised by the waterfront in Birmingham, it had been quite a while since we'd been to the 2nd City. Once fuelled we found our seats in the very impressive Symhpony Hall we had a great view from the center of the first tier things were set for a wonderful evening of audible pleasure. The evening was kicked off with a great performance by Paul Freeman who did a fine job in the support slot and I will definitely be checking more of his music out but the anticipation was all for the wonderful tones of Chris Cornell.
He walked on stage to rapturous applause as you would expect moving around to acknowledge each section of the eager crowd and then proceeded to acknowledge the England game playing that evening. Once his honourary induction into the England supporters club had been concluded he strapped on his acoustic....As soon as I heard those first few strums I knew we were in for a great night. The place had wonderful acoustics which just enhanced his stripped back performance. Every high note as clear as glass and the searing sound as he let loose giving away his rock credentials. But this was no rock concert the stage setup gave that away. Guitars placed across the back almost like a viewing gallery, the mic and a stool in the middle of a red rug and on the left what turned out to be a record player. It was like being invited into Chris Cornells front room for the evening, his relaxed conversations with the audience just helping you believe you'd all been specially invited for the evenings performance. I even had a flashback when he actually went over to the record player and played a vinyl backing track, it was like being back at my parents in the seventies and eighties the visual effect was to remind me of my dad singing along to his favourite Frankie Lane album (Thankfully there was no audible comparison to make, sorry dad).
As the night progressed I slipped into musical nirvana each song wonderfully delivered with personal high points as 'Fell On Black Days' caressed my ears and 'I am the highway', finally I was blown away by the Beatles cover 'A day in the life'. So I started out the night believing that Chris Cornell has the best vocal I've heard on a recording and that's not changed but now he's hit the top of vocals I've heard live. Basically I would listen to this guy sing the phone book and if he's playing near you in any of his bands go listen to him and if he's not go buy his albums. If your feeling flush go do both. In case your not sure I enjoyed the night :)
I think as this is starting to look like quite a long blog entry I'll put the Pearl Jam gig in it's own blog so that will be up very soon......
