I decided to take a chance on Soundgarden’s Lollapalooza 1992 on the strength of the set list. It has two of my favorite Louder Than Love songs, “Gun” and “Big Dumb Sex”, as well as what I think are the three best songs on Badmotorfinger, “Jesus Christ Pose”, “Slaves & Bulldozers”, and “Searching With My Good Eye Closed”.
The sound mixing here is decent, probably above average for this kind of non-major-label live record. After the slow, plodding “Gun” things kick into overdrive with an impossibly fast guitar intro to “Jesus Christ Pose” leading into Chris Cornell blasting out the opening vocals – And you stare at me… In your Jesus Christ pose… Fantastic stuff and a criminally underrated song. One odd interlude is Cornell busting out some lyrics from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” during the breakdown of “Slaves & Bulldozers”.
Every now and again the music overpowers the vocals, especially when Cornell sings in a lower register. But because he’s Chris Cornell, you know he’s going to launch himself back into the song at some point, his voice punching through the wall of guitar and bass and commanding center stage. Admittedly his voice is not at its most beautiful on these tracks (it sounds like it’s been a long tour), but it is a live recording and before he showed us how truly rich and beautiful his voice really was on Superunknown. All in all, though, this is a quality recording and a good pick-up for Soundgarden fans.