The Shubert Theatre on a Friday night in mid-November was the place to be in 2013. A Seattle rock legend was in town on his solo acoustic tour. On this special night, Chris Cornell played 33 songs in Boston.
Two years earlier, Cornell has released a solo record entitled Songbook. This was a collection of live acoustic performances from his tour earlier that year. During his Songbook era, Cornell would tour the world as a solo act and play songs from his entire career. Just him, a guitar, and his iconic voice. This included a catalog that consisted of Soundgarden, Audioslave, Temple of the Dog, solo records and he also plays covers.
Cornell’s 2013 tour consisted of 30 shows over October and November. The Boston date was in the middle of the trek that went from San Diego up the west coast to Seattle, then through Canada, and eventually down the east to Atlantic City.
The Boston evening started with Cornell slowly strolling onto the stage. Before long, he had played a collection of solo and Audioslave songs, opening with “Bend In The Road,” a track that would eventually make his 2016 record, Higher Truth.
Included in the 33 song set were Michael Jackson, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens, and Bee Gees covers. Mid-way through the set, Cornell told the adoring crowd how he tried to learn the song “One” by U2 but when he Googled the lyrics he accidentally came across the words to the Metallica tune by the same name. The result was the music and melody of U2’s “One” mixed with the words to Metallica’s “One.”
The main set closed with Soundgarden’s hit “Blow Up The Outside World.” This was a teaser of what was to come. Shortly into the encore Cornell states, “I’m going to just keep playing Soundgarden songs.” Four of them then followed, including a stripped-down version of the hard-rocker “Outshined.”
What was equally impressive to the fact that this show went on for three hours, was that Cornell had to be in New York City the next morning. Which meant he was going from the stage to directly back on the road through the night.
Cornell performed his solo acoustic show three times in Boston from 2011-2015. However, none of them came close to the performance length of that night ten years ago at the Shubert Theatre. Today is the sixth anniversary of his passing. To pay tribute to Chris Cornell playing 33 songs in Boston 10 years ago, here are six songs from his Songbook record.
