Live Shows
Tobi Vail
Kathi Wilcox
Kathleen Hanna
For those of you who have no clue who they are, let me introduce you to BIKINI KILL.
Pioneers of Riot Grrrl, who have not prrrformed together live for some 20 years.
Don’t expect to get a ticket for a reasonable price though, if you can get one at all…
Three originally announced shows; two in New York in May and June, and one in Los Angeles in April, SOLD OUT immediately, and a subsequently announced second LA show, also in April has also sold out.
Unfortunately Stub Hub is now selling tickets to all shows for four times the price.
Here’s more detail.
This tiddly bloke had a great time at CES Vegas, and likely won’t even remember.
He got up on stage with Foo Fighters and swigged Champagne brought to him by Pat Smear, at the request of Dave Grohl.
He then “danced” to Faces cover “Stay with Me”
It turns out that what happens in Vegas, is less likely to stay there since social media took a hold….
John Corabi… Sammy Hagar…
Matt Walst!
At the height of their success these guys grabbed the reins of Motley Crue, Van Halen, and Three Days Grace, bringing us new memories, new meaning, and new music.
In the case of the latter, Walst is still up on stage alongside brother Brad, bringing it hard at every live performance.
Newer songs mixed with stayed favourites.
A little light banter mixed with an excellent acoustic interlude.
The last time Headbangerwoman saw Three Days Grace the crowd were bouncing off the walls at Rexall Place, Edmonton.
This show on December 12th 2018 at Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton was a touch smaller as were some in that crowd, (a good amount of kids present) and a little less rambunctious, but the crowd were rocking the bleachers and in full support of the headliners none the less.
A young lady on the floor was spotted signing songs to her Dad.
A member of the police presence during the last 20 minutes heard to say “this was the only good song they had”…The fans quite clearly in disagreement!
A quick Shout out to Jess Jackson of 100.3 The Bear…
Also in support of this Canadian staple of rock was Texan band Nothing More. These guys are not the boys next door, rather; Rage Against the Machine meets Jim Morrison, takes a good hit of crack and streaks repeatedly in from if the elderly neighbors house!
Producing an excellent mix of headbanging noise and attitude, and sounding great as live performers whilst doing so, this band was a pleasant surprise!
Arriving a tad late Headbangerwoman caught Bad Wolves mid-way through their third last song. A heady sound with a darker vibe, the crowd went crazy when they announced that their final song Zombie had just gone double platinum, and that all proceeds would be given to the children of late Cranberries vocalist Delores O’Riordan; who was found dead in a bathtub on January 15th 2018 due to accidental drowning on the eve of recording the song with this band.
Thanks were shouted out to General Manager Rose Slanic, who was in attendance.
Sombre. Moving.
You gotta love Mr Mike Motherfuckin’ McCready, and while we should laud him for a moment here…this ain’t about him.
Another of Seattle’s greatest; Duff Motherfuckin’ McKagan, is the focus here.
After the release of a book by the same title, originally in 2011, the cinematic version, of It’s So Easy: and Other Lies (2016), now on Netflix, provides some much needed depth, and great visual additions.
Taking to the stage and baring his soul to a live audience, Duff reads from the book as his family and friends, including Slash, Nikki Sixx, and Susan Holmes-McKagan, fill in in the gaps via interviews.
McKagan is open and honest, and shines a much needed light on the very real struggles of addicts. When talking of his recovery, he becomes animated.
He also shines when he talks of his thirty plus years as a musician with bands such as The Walking Papers, Velvet Revolver, and the the more recently reunited Guns N Roses.
The band and accompanying string quartet provide a moving soundtrack to the theater performance, and serve to add theatrical emotion.
If you are a fan of music, a survivor of addiction, or you just need a decent watch, this should be near the top of your “to watch” list.
Anyone that wasn’t in their seats for Warpaint at Rogers Place, Edmonton, on Friday October 27th 2017, missed a fucking incredible experience. The four piece from Los Angeles belted out a stunning, but not nearly long enough set. All members were given equal frontage on the stage, and that there was still plenty of room for them to mingle and vibe as each song offered a different lead vocal, and unique take on the funk that is the foundation that Warpaint are know for. Unfortunately the stage was kept quite dark throughout the set, and from the back half of the venue shadowy figures of the band were really all that anyone could see.
In case you were wondering…and you should be! From stage left; Stella, Theresa, Emily and Jenny Lee are Warpaint.
As well as playing newer tracks including New Song, older favorites Elephants, Disco//Very, and Intro; leading to Keep It Healthy, were not forgotten.
A set far too quickly over, and a fabulous choice to lead the way for the headliner.
Breakdown was pretty rapid, and Depeche Mode were on the stage by 20.45, a silhouette of an obviously revered Dave Gahan writhing and contorting to Going Backwards, on a riser behind the rest of the band. True to form this was a show to promote their current release, and SPIRIT is yet another excellent record by his trio, but some older members of the audience did seem disgruntled by the fact that the 80’s and 90’s hits that shot the band to fame, were not being covered during the early part of the show, and they ignorantly sat down playing with their cell phones! Of course true fans have supported the band throughout, and have kept up to date with all of the music that has been released during their four decade career….and rightly so, because it’s all absolutely fucking mind blowing.
Gahan has a history of being a troubled soul, but FUCK. Just FUCK. If Rudolph Nureyev and Jane Fonda produced a child, and named him Freddie Mercury, but he had an alter ego driven by nitromethane, here is the result. Demanding adulation throughout the two hour and fifteen minute show, and absolutely deserving of it, this guy is a mother fucking artist, he’s a singer, he’s a dancer, he’s a performer, he’s the man that words are not sufficient to describe him.
Of course there are other members of the band, and mainstay Martin Gore showed his metal by fronting the vocals on three songs during the show, while Gahan was taking a break. Gore has a more than excellent voice, and his musical contribution is absolutely key to the Depeche Mode sound, but he isn’t the presence that is Gahan, and as it became glaringly apparent through the show, there is no other frontman, or woman, alive on earth at this point in time that is even coming close to what he is.
Let’s not forget that this tour is running for ten months, with four more months to push…these guys will produce this show one hundred and six times, and yet they are giving 250% of their all each time, and then squeezing the audience for just a little more. Being onstage, performing, putting on a show, is an obvious spiritual occurrence for Gahan. He is in the zone, but this is not a selfish act. This is about everyone in the room, about giving and receiving…and it is so much more of a religious experience than anyone could ever get in the village church..Unless Gahan happens to step in for your local vicar and become your Personal Jesus!
The set list was put together with a lot of thought, with a few slower numbers peppered through, and an unexpected cover of David Bowies Heroes added to slow the encore and make you take stock, but also with enough older “popular” songs in the final eight to get the more mature folk in the audience off of their phones and onto their feet.
If you weren’t blown away by this show in it’s entirety, and you are not as sad as fuck that it’s over today, then you need to check in and get on board, because you got way more than you paid for . This shit is the real deal.
KG Headbangerwoman Oct 28 2017
On November 21 2016 Temple of the Dog played the final show of their reunion tour in Seattle, where “Grunge” as a movement had started.
Head held high Chris Cornell teased the crowd about a world tour, and with a voice that never seemed to fade, he sang All Night Thing to close out the show. Cornell and band mates Matt Cameron, Jeff Ament, Stone Gossard and Mike McCready were once again celebrating and in tandem, reminiscing the all too short life of Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood. Wood, who died following a heroin overdose at the age of 24 in 1990, was the room mate, confidante and best friend of Cornell.
Mother Love Bone went on, with the addition of singer Eddie Vedder to be the very successful Pearl Jam. Cornell fronted Soundgarden right up until his untimely death.
Unfortunately the news of the very short tour was not received well by the girlfriend of Wood, as reported here in Consequence of Sound.
On Thursday May 18th 2017 after preaching to the crowd that; “nobody can tell me what to do. Nobody tells us (gesturing to the band) what to do. You can burn fucking crosses on your lawn, I don’t give a shit. You can burn your house down. Who cares? I don’t as long as it doesn’t catch someone else’s house on fire” The voice that never faded was silenced forever.
PHOTOGRAPHY by Charles Peterson
Shortly after playing a Soundgarden show in Detroit where he seemed at times disoriented, and appeared to be looking toward the floor a lot more than he observed the crowd in front of him, Chris Cornell, aged 52, was pronounced dead in his hotel room.
Initial reports suggested suicide by hanging, though more recent reports say that Cornell was found unresponsive on the floor with an exercise rubber around his neck. He was reportedly bleeding from the mouth when he was discovered.
Cornell’s wife Vicky Cornell has said that during their final phone conversation he was slurring, sounding groggy and repeating the words”I am just tired” before hanging up the phone. This conversation prompted a call to security to check on the singer. Additional reports by his wife of the singer perhaps taking too much of the drug Ativan and not being in full control of his faculties, are still waiting to be proven.
A public lifetime of recovery from alcohol and substance abuse, loss of friends and peers from overdoses and suicide (Andrew Wood, Layne Stayley, Kurt Cobain) had put this admittedly anxious, at times obviously depressed, and very private man, on a pedestal. He was a founder and one of the last to survive. That is a huge responsibility. It was often obvious during interviews that Cornell was a guarded man, choosing to express himself through his music and onstage, and not one on one in front of a camera pointed directly towards him.
When Soundgarden went on an “indefinite hiatus” in 1997, Cornell could still not resist his drug of choice (singing) at that time, and went on to sing very successfully for Audioslave, not to mention a slew of solo projects.
In 2012 with the release by Sondgarden of King Animal after a fifteen year hiatus that Cornell described as “probably a bit too long,” during an interview at that time with himself and the bands bassist Ben Shepherd, Cornell was back where he was meant to be. Current, forefront and right here. The album was very well received and Live to Rise was included on the Soundtrack of The Avengers movie that year.
Despite this notoriety, the success, the adoration and adulation, Cornell, who was not only blessed with an absolutely stunning vocal range and ability to sing with seemingly little effort, was considered also to be a very attractive man. Boasting a six pack, a head of beautiful brunette curls, piercing blue eyes and sparkling white teeth, he was the epitome of the American dream, yet his own dreams were seemingly awful nightmares, full of thoughts of friends in days gone by.
Did resurrecting those days by performing with Temple of the Dog make those dreams too much to bear? Was there guilt in making it and still being relevant and present too much for one man to bear?
In all honesty we will never know. It seems that Cornell had not shared his feelings with anyone close and there is as yet, no official statement on either of the official band websites, however Pearl Jam and Temple of the Dog guitarist Mike McCready offered this:
“Chris Cornell painted in song the darkness and beauty of life in Seattle.” McCready began. “Chris means a lot to me today, as he trusted me to play on Temple. He handed me a dream in getting to actually play on beautiful songs. Informed how I would play on Pearl Jam records in the future, I believe”.
“He gave me the break into the music business I’d wanted since I was 11. He was a friend I will miss. I miss you, brother”.
Pearl Jam paid tribute to Cornell posting a photo of the late singer and his dog on their Facebook page. Read more here.
Let us all, in this time of mourning, wondering why and how this could have happened, and perhaps regretting greatly that is has, let us be in the knowledge that we were witness to greatness. We were witness to humility, realness, humbleness and great talent and ability.
We can never know what another person is thinking. We cannot know what another may do something in a time of desperation or tiredness, that perhaps will have end result that was not really intended. We can show compassion, we can be an ear, but without being offered a glimpse of another’s thoughts, we often will miss a signal or sign. In this instance we now miss a whole being. Someone who affected our own well being and ability to cope is gone. A talent that will not easily be followed, replaced or repeated.
We can only be thankful for the time that Chris Cornell gave to us, often at risk to his own well being and mental health and more recently possibly resultant in taking him away.
International Association for Suicide Prevention
While we await a full toxicology report, and the full results of the autopsy it is best not to speculate, but to know that Cornell had a family, a wife and children, and it is because of this that we should honor their wishes and be respectful at this very difficult time.
“The family is thinking about a (public) memorial for fans, but is coping now with their loss and the funeral service,” a source close to the family told CNN. Pasich confirmed to Variety that plans for public memorials will be announced “when that’s been decided.”
Chris Cornell will be laid to rest Friday, May 26th, in a private ceremony at Los Angeles’ Hollywood Forever Cemetery. May he rest in peace.
Chris Cornell may be gone but his music will never die.
KG Headbangerwoman May 23 2017