And JamesT says: “do you have tonight’s winning lottery numbers, too?”

No, I’m not really a psychic… I just play one at concerts.

Tonight’s birthday Audioslave outing with at the nearby Gwinnett arena was the exact same show as this past May’s Audioslave outing with at the Tabernacle…. except, they actually sounded better at the Tabernacle. The echo? reverb? whatever… at Gwinnett was killing me and was quite obviously screwing up Mr. Cornell’s timing. He did a little better when he stayed behind the monitors, but honestly, having just heard the same stuff earlier this year… this time sounded like c-r-a-p.

That is, until the only reason to go to the show happens (No, Stacy, not when he takes his shirt off, which he DIDN’T… again — same show) when the band leaves the stage and just Mr. Cornell and his guitar come up in the spotlight for a nice little medley that didn’t blow out my eardrums with echo, complete with Black Hole Sun and Call Me a Dog.

I would say it’s disappointing as a band they mostly do stuff from Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger, but honestly it was hard to hear Chris butcher his own damn song’s with that crappy timing tonight. Egad. And he shouts to the crowd, “Give it up for these guys cranking out that tune pretty damn well!” Sure, they did a great job on playing (just like last time), but did you have to sing them so crappy?

Meh… and I guess without the fear of dying from a falling balcony at the Tabernacle during that last RATM song, this time couldn’t compare. Still, what I wouldn’t give for a nice night of solo Cornell, even if it meant listening to stuff off of Euphoria Morning.

Oh yeah… and Seether was there, and played their songs… and sounded okay… well, like Seether. And before them somebody called 30 Seconds to Mars, which is apparently the band Jared Leto is in, played some stuff that sounded like… well, like they were trying too hard and like nothing I’d ever heard on the radio or anyplace. The lead singer… Jared, I guess, jumped down into the crowd and kept running back and forth through it while singing, then ran around to the bottom of the stadium seating and grabbed some girl and hung on her while he sang… and yeah. it was all him trying too hard to impress the meager “we’d rather stand in line for beer than listen to the opening acts” crowd. He was really short, and um.. yeah, after the show they did autographs at the merchandise booth, but nobody cared. Or maybe it was just me.

Anywho… must turn off these mp3s of the Soundgarden I wish I’d heard tonight and go let my ears stop ringing.

— Sommster 2005