It’s still difficult to write about anything Chris Cornell-related without fighting the urge to break down and cry, so how his friends managed to hold it together to perform some of his most iconic songs live this weekend is fkn beyond me.
But that’s what they did. Bush and Live both stepped up to fill Soundgarden‘s headlining spot at Ohio’s Rock On The Range festival on Friday night, uniting with Slipknot frontman Corey Taylor for an all-star tribute to one of the greatest singers the world has ever known.
As if you need reminding, Chris Cornell — grunge pioneer, vocal powerhouse and all-around music legend — tragically passed away on May 17th, 2017. His death has been officially ruled a suicide, but his family have released a statement claiming that “drugs or other substances may have affected his actions”, and that “if Chris took his life, he did not know what he was doing”.
Anyway, none of that really matters now. We’ve lost yet another rock legend and all our hearts are broken. But while Chris Cornell may have been snatched away from this world way too soon, he’s left us with almost four-decades worth of incredible music that will last until the end of time.
His friends paid tribute to that legacy at Rock On The Range, with Taylor covering Temple of the Dog’s epic ‘Hunger Strike’, Bush playing Soundgarden’s iconic ‘Black Hole Sun’, and Live performing Audioslave’s ‘I Am the Highway’ (a tear-jerker under any circumstances but right now, almost unbearable).
To their credit though, they nailed it.
Watch fan-shot footage from the tribute below.
