A long-dormant creature of grunge lore reemerged in Philadelphia on Friday night. No, not Krist Novoselic’s haunted tree fort. We’re talking about Temple of the Dog.
Spoken of in hushed tones by record store clerks of a certain age, Temple of the Dog is best known as the early ’90s outfit that featured Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell and Matt Cameron and Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard, Mike McCready and Jeff Ament. Formed following the death of Mother Love Bone frontman Andrew Wood, the group would see a self-titled album tumble out and a place in genre mythos was instantly carved out. As is customary with items of legend in the ’10s, the band has elected to tour in celebration of their record’s 25th anniversary.
According to Rolling Stone, the band’s reunion debut (which they’ve had a bit of practice for) featured a setlist that weaved from originals like “Hunger Strike” (sans Vedder) and “Say Hello 2 Heaven” to Mother Love Bone fare like “Stardog Champion” to covers of cuts from David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath.
“When the album Temple of the Dog came out, it was about a little more than a year before it started getting a lot of airplay,” said Cornell “But then a band called Pearl Jam and a band called Soundgarden started getting a lot of f*cking airplay.”
Temple of the Dog play Philadelphia again tonight, followed by sold out dates in New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle.
(Via Rolling Stone)
