Searching with My Good Eye Closed

I suppose that of all the concerts I’ve seen since returning to Chicago the most interesting story is the one of the concert I didn’t attend.  Life, I suppose, is like that.  Some of the most important decisions are the ones not made.

It’s a story that goes back to last year.  Soundgarden was more-or-less officially back with a reunion show at Lollapalooza.  And I was in Dallas.  Lollapalooza was the Soundgarden reunion, Green Day, and a whole bunch of bullshit that wasn’t worth putting up with for the insane cost of traveling back to Chicago and paying out the ass for Lolla tickets.

I do not actually like Lollapalooza, even if I’m fond of the idea of Lollapalooza and I’m willing to concede that Lollapalooza was pretty much the hinge upon which the music of the ‘90s swung.  I’m weird like that.

Soundgarden announced their reunion tour in the spring of this year.  As the early dates came out it became increasingly obvious that they weren’t going anywhere close to Texas.  Adding insult to injury, they were going to be in Chicago on July 16th, a week after I was planning on going home.

Then I decided to move back.  Over Fourth of July weekend.  You bet your ass that the first thing I did after signing my offer letter involved buying a ticket to see Soundgarden on July 16th.  Like there was even a question.

It turned out the Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers were also planning on being in Chicago that night, specifically with Sons of Bill at the House of Blues.[1]

The Soundgarden show started at 7:30.  I arrived at around 8:20 because the opening act was The Mars Volta, which I considered to be an insult to all human decency.  But I’ll let Dr. David Thorpe explain why I despise The Mars Volta.[2]

Soundgarden went on at 8:40 after the fastest set changeover I’d ever seen.

So as this was happening:




It was occurring to me that Sons of Bill weren’t going on for at least 20 minutes.

Immediately I began mapping my course from the UIC Pavilion to the House of Blues Chicago.  All I’d have to do was pull out of the garage, take the Eisenhower in to the city (assuming it wasn’t closed, which seems to happen from time to time these days.  Construction under the Old Post Office and all), then take LaSalle or State right up across the river.  I even knew the parking garage on Kinzie I’d be able to hit.  It was cake.  All that had to happen was that Sons of Bill played for at least 45 minutes with a long-ish set change and Soundgarden run a workman-like hour and a half set and I’d be able to say I saw Soundgarden and most of an RCPM set in one night after two weeks back in Chicago.

This kind of consumed my available headspace for a bit.

All of the sudden it occurred to me what I was doing.  I was rooting for Soundgarden to play a short set.  I was hoping that the first chance I had to see the band that was the most important band in my life[3] was short and to the point so I could rush across time to see a band I saw seven or eight times in 2010[4], four (five?) times in 2009, and had already seen once in 2011.  Also, I hate the HoB Chicago with a fiery passion.  But, y’know, it was the idea of the thing.

There’s an idea behind that idea.

The short explanation is simple: I wasn’t satisfied with what I had right in front of me.  Even though the thing in front of me was Soundgarden.  Sound.  Gar.  Den.

There’s a certain level of absurdity in that.  Fortunately, though, I was capable of seeing it.  So I decided, “Fuck it, I’m going to enjoy the hell out of this because it’s Soundgarden.”

And then they played “Ugly Truth” and “Hunted Down” back to back.[5]  It seemed like a reward of some sort.

They went in to the encore break sometime around 10:30.  Upon their return, Chris said they were going to play, “As long as they let us.”  This was followed by “Nothing to Say,” a song with a pedigree as deep as “Hunted Down,”[6] then “Mailman,” then “Like Suicide.”

“Like Suicide,” by the by, is probably my favorite Soundgarden song.

After that they started in to “Slaves & Bulldozers.”  Two hours before I’d wanted to hear that song as quickly as possible.  But when they started it there was no song I’d wanted to hear less.  “Slaves & Bulldozers” is Soundgarden’s “Yellow Ledbetter” or “Nada.”

It’s the song they play when they won’t be playing any more songs.

It meant that they wouldn’t be playing “Big Dumb Sex” and following it with “Ty Cobb” for the “Gratuitous Use of the Word 'Fuck'” two-fer.  Fuck.

Soundgarden left the stage at almost exactly 11 PM, which was probably the hard end time for the UIC Pavilion.

I got on to the Eisenhower headed west.  There would be no Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers.[7]

I was totally okay with that.

Something tells me there’s a lesson somewhere in there.

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[1]Also, too, Matt Nathanson was in town that night.  July 16th was really, really popular, apparently.

[2]I once attempted to listen to a Mars Volta album, Frances the Mute, I believe.  I attempted to write a friend an email about it, but gave up after about a paragraph because I realized that I was simply writing pretty much the exact same thing as the Your Band Sucks piece.

[3]I say this without hyperbole.  “Black Hole Sun” changed my life.  Before the spring of 1994 I listened to Christian rock and oldies, the latter because that was what my mom always had on when she played music.  Also, there was my dad’s unfortunate tendency to listen to WNUA 95.5, which was Chicago’s smooth jazz station.  Srsly.  Then I heard “Black Hole Sun.”  I suppose that it was inevitable.  If it wasn’t “Black Hole Sun” it might have been any number of other fantastic songs that were getting radio play in the mid-‘90s.  But the fact remains that the song that made it happen was “Black Hole Sun,” so Soundgarden changed my life in the space of five-and-a-half minutes.

[4]Yes.  I have literally lost count.  I know there were the five shows of Rogapalooza, then one show at Love & War in Texas in Plano and one at Joe’s on Weed Street that was super-convenient to a week I spent back in Chicago.  But I can’t help but think there was another in there somewhere.

[5]”Ugly Truth” being the lead track of Loud Love, the album that came before Badmotorfinger.  “Hunted Down” was the lead track to the Screaming Life EP.  It’s nearly impossible to get older and deeper than “Hunted Down,” as the only Soundgarden recordings that preceded Screaming Life came on the Deep Six compilation.  And, I suppose, there were probably cassette demos being handed about somewhere, too.  Either way, 1987.  That’s when Screaming Life was recorded.

[6]Also, too, there were two songs I didn’t recognize.  Turns out they were “Flower” and “Beyond the Wheel,” off of Ultramega OK, the first studio album.  The reason I didn’t recognize them is because I generally don’t listen to Ultramega OK because, well, it’s not that great.  I tend to go from Screaming Life/Fopp directly to Loud Love.

[7]RCPM will be at the High Noon Saloon in Madison, WI in September.  Two things: 1. I love the High Noon Saloon.  2.  There is something in Madison that can’t be found anywhere else in the Midwest: a Fuzzy’s Taco Shop.

That’s right.  Fuzzy’s goddamn Tacos.

Something tells me I’m going to be in Madison in September.

Also, Matt Nathanson gonna be in Madison in October.  Hmm…