Hope your Memorial Day weekend was a good one. It was strange for me thinking about the passing of Gregg Allman on Saturday, considering we randomly had put his song, “Midnight Rider,” in the hardDrive Cover It Up special edition over the weekend. Who knew the legendary frontman would leave this mortal coil to join his bandmates, brother, guitarist Duane and bassist Berry Oakley, who left before him. Thank you, Gregg, for all you left us.
Ya know, you can tell Dave Grohl missed the road. The Pulse Of Radio reporting Foo Fighters had the plug pulled on them during the band’s headlining set at the BottleRock festival in Napa Valley, CA on Sunday night (May 28th). The group kept playing, however, finishing their final encore of “Everlong” even without power. The Foos headlined the third and final evening of the event, following previous nights’ headliners Tom Petty and Maroon 5.
The San Francisco Chronicle reports promoters “promptly shut down the speakers and video screens” halfway through “Everlong” because the band had played past a strict 10:00 p.m. curfew. The festival began implementing a strict curfew after residents previously complained about sound levels. The Foos finally bid farewell to the audience after finishing the song. The group warmed up for the BottleRock event with an unannounced, invite-only gig at the nearby Blue Note jazz club on Friday (May 26th). The Blue Note and BottleRock shows were the first official Foo Fighters concerts in the U.S. in two years, although the band did play a brief benefit gig earlier this year. The band has yet to schedule more U.S. shows for 2017.
150 lucky fans got to watch the two-hour club show, which took place just hours after Grohl and drummer Taylor Hawkins attended the funeral f Soundgarden singer Chris Cornell in Los Angeles.
Besides Grohl and Hawkins, the rock and Hollywood royalty turned out for Cornell‘s funeral, which was held at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles on Friday (May 26). Attendees included his widow Vicky and two younger children, Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield of Metallica, Nirvana‘s Krist Novoselic, Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction, Chester Bennington and Brad Delson of Linkin Park, Joe Walsh, Courtney Love, Bush‘s Gavin Rossdale, Alice In Chains‘ Jerry Cantrell, members of Soundgarden, Audioslave and Pearl Jam, Pharrell Williams, James Franco, Brad Pitt, Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale, Josh Brolin and more.
Bennington performed Leonard Cohen‘s “Hallelujah” for the gathering, with many in attendance brought to tears.
Eulogies were given by Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron and Kim Thayil, Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament, Audioslave‘s Tom Morello, Brolin, Bennington and Delson, and Eric Esrailian, producer of the movie “The Promise.”
The title song to that film, which Chris wrote and performed, was also played at the service. The Temple Of The Dog song “All Night Thing” played as mourners walked from the service to the garden where Cornell’s remains were interred.
Morello said during his eulogy, “Chris was as melodic as The Beatles, as rocking as Sabbath and as haunting as Edgar Allan Poe.”
Flowers and several red roses were placed on Cornell‘s grave marker, which read, “Voice of our generation and an artist for all time.”
Fans gathered outside the cemetery’s gates hours before the start of a public memorial scheduled for 3:00 p.m. PT.
His widow, Vicky Cornell, has spoken out briefly on Twitter following her husband’s funeral last Friday (May 26th). Vicky first thanked fans for their “love and support” in the days following Chris’ May 18th death, then added in a second tweet that “contrary to media reports it is untrue that (Chris)’s last words to me were ‘I’m very tired.’”
In an account published online by TMZ, sources said that Chris’ last conversation with his wife by phone, shortly before he was found dead in a Detroit hotel room, ended with those words after becoming increasingly incoherent and slurred.
Chris’ manager, Ron Laffitte, told CNN about his client’s death, “Nobody saw this coming, his bandmates didn’t see this coming. It’s totally out of character for the Chris that I’ve known and worked with for the last 10 years. It’s incredibly bizarre. I have to think that something threw him off the tracks . . . he must have been out of his right mind.”
Laffitte told CNN he last spoke to Cornell on the afternoon of his death when they discussed plans for Chris to perform at the 2017 Global Citizens Music Festival this September in New York. The manager recalled, “He was just really excited about this specific idea that we were going to do. He said, ‘We aren’t just going to make pop history with this one, brother. We are going to make real history.’ I would say the last couple of months, he was as optimistic and happy as I can ever recall him.”
In a story published over the weekend at Rolling Stone, some of Cornell’s musical colleagues described their feelings about the loss and recalled their last interactions with him.
Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello last saw Cornell when that band reunited to play three songs at the Anti-Inaugural Ball in January. He recalled, “We hung out after the show . . . The last thing he said to me was, ‘I had such a great time. I would love to do this again. You just let me know.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, let’s figure it out!’”
Although Audioslave ended on somewhat contentious terms in 2007, Morello told us a few years later that he still had great affection for Chris: “You know, Chris I consider a good friend and I love that guy, you know, and we went through a lot together, both musically and personally. And it was, you know, my belief that the band’s friendship and roots were deep.”
Morello added to Rolling Stone about Cornell’s passing, “It’s unbelievable. I don’t know what the phases of mourning are, but I’m in the first one. I still expect this to be some kind of mistake.”
System Of A Down frontman Serj Tankian spent time with Cornell at Elton John’s 70th birthday party on March 25th, saying, “We had this long chat . . . He had plans, man.”
Alice In Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell, who lost his own singer, Layne Staley, in 2002, said that Chris was “the last guy in the world I thought that would happen to,” adding, “That’s not the way that book was supposed to end. And it was not the way that book was going.”
They’re baaaccckkk! Tool performed over the weekend in Boston, MA at the Boston Calling festival. And their frontman Maynard James Keenan had some choice, if unusual, words for the crowd on Sunday night (May 28th), when the band headlined the final night of the event. According to Alternative Nation, Keenan said, “As artists, we interpret and report, that’s our job. We are merchants of emotion. We have the privilege to do that because of active and former law enforcement and military defending our right to do so.”
He continued, “Those of you who are law enforcement and military, your job is to defend our right to act like whining, entitled snowflake a****les. Myself being one. Snowflakes, your job is to respect that I’m f**king doing that for you. Divided we fall. Don’t believe the hype dumb-dumbs, we’re all in this together.” Keenan did not elaborate further on his comments.
The Boston Calling show was the fourth of Tool’s current tour and marked the band’s first show in the Boston area in more than a decade. The tour will also bring the act to New York City next weekend for the Governor’s Ball and its first show in that city since 2006. Tool’s tour continues in Rochester, NY on Tuesday (May 30th). The trek will wrap up with a large show in San Bernardino, CA on Jun 24th which will also feature Melvins, Primus, The Crystal Method and more.
Although there have been more hints than usual lately that we might be closer to the first new Tool album since 2006, there has been no concrete evidence of a release date yet. Sigh.
I noticed on Disturbed frontman David Draiman‘s Facebook that he is in NYC set to perform at the World Science Festival. (www.worldsciencefestival.com). Pretty cool. Sorry I am not in NYC to check it out!
Happy 53rd today to Tom Morello and Happy 46th to Live bassist Patrick Dahlheimer.