Words and pictures by Morgan Keuler

Chris Cornell and his band got the Paramount crowd standing throughout the venue with the trio of “Outshined,” “Show Me How To Live,” and “Hungerstrike.” There was no Eddie Vedder duet on the latter, but Cornell made it a family affair by bringing his kids out on the stage and singing with them instead.

Cornell looked more Dylan-esque than ever, and just as relaxed. For reasons lost on me, perhaps to “silence the voices,” he walked on stage with a broom and garbage collector in hand and proceeded to mime sweeping the stage.

He hit the high notes on “Hungerstrike” and other vocally intense tracks, but was understandably a little less fierce than decades past. Still damn good for 20+ years of hammering on the vocal chords. Recently quitting smoking and drinking seems to have helped clean up some of his more gravelly vocals from recent Audioslave work.

The backing band certainly wasn’t Cameron, Shepherd, and Thayil or Morello, Commerford, and Wilk, but they capably backed Cornell and did justice to the catalog of music he’s been a part of. After thanking them for playing, Cornell even went as far to say he wouldn’t be on the road again if it weren’t for these musicians.

Cornell didn’t play guitar at all except for an extended mid set acoustic serenade, that included his cover of “Billie Jean,” the rarity “Call Me A Dog,” and ended on “Like A Stone” with the crowd singing the final chorus, for which he was very appreciative and complimentary.

He told the audience “Black Hole Sun” was “written coming home late at night on 405,” a story he said was only for Seattle since we’d understand what it meant. “Jesus Christ Pose” ended the main set and during the extended jam Cornell’s brother Peter came out and did a few licks, then the band threw into a brief “Whole Lotta Love” cover.

For the solid encore of “Burden In My Hand,” “Seasons,” “Say Hello To Heaven,” and “Slaves and Bulldozers,” Cornell came out sans shirt to the rapturous applause of the ladies in the crowd. And I have to say, the guy is probably in even better shape than his famed no shirt days of SG.

Before the show, I was worried it was going to be a glorified, greatest hits sing-a-long—and it was. But it was great. While it wasn’t the highly rumored Soundgarden reunion, at just short of two and a half hours, it was an awesome Chris Cornell-apalooza.