May 24, 2007

Chris Cornell: Astoria, London, Wednesday May 16

Leather-lunged rent-a-gob self indulges

Mention Chris Cornell, and most people will go ‘who?’. Well-informed music fans, however, will probably hit you with a spade. In-between those two extremes, there remains a huge hump of the bell-curve who evidently still worship the ex-Temple Of The Dog, ex-Soundgarden, ex-Audioslave mega-vocalist. A sold-out Astoria. Two encores. Prior to that, two (two!) hours stuck in Hollywood blockbuster end credits, as ‘ole leather lungs’ shows off his omnipotent vocal cords, ranging at will between ‘overwrought’ and ‘massively overwrought’. Ironically, only on Casino Royale theme ‘You Know My Name’ does he rein-in sufficiently to master his blast, joined on keys by David Arnold – the guy who pumps extra ‘double-oh’ into all those Bond tunes. And let’s not even talk about that 6 million-year-long ‘Billie Jean’ cover, shall we?
Gavin Haynes

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