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Audioslave (3.5 stars)—April 14, The Joint

Josh Bell

After releasing their self-titled debut album in 2002, Audioslave toured extensively, never once playing songs by Soundgarden or Rage Against the Machine, the two huge, '90s alt-rock bands the Audioslave band members came from. Last week at the Joint, that all changed.


Five songs into the kick-off of a tour supporting forthcoming album, Out of Exile, they launched into Soundgarden's 1996 hit, "Spoonman." During the rest of the show, they played six songs from their former bands, including Soundgarden's "Outshined" and "Black Hole Sun" (in an acoustic solo version by singer Chris Cornell), and Rage's "Sleep Now in the Fire," "Killing in the Name" and "Bulls on Parade" (in an instrumental version showcasing Tom Morello's searing guitar work).


Predictably, the crowd went wild, although encouragingly enough, they went nearly as wild for Audioslave hits "Cochise" and "Like a Stone." Band members have said they feel established enough with their first album and tours to play the old songs, and indeed they looked like they were having fun trotting out the familiar tunes. "See if you remember this one," Cornell said before "Outshined," pausing before adding, "See if we remember this one."


Given it was their first gig in some time, it's not surprising that the band was at times a little rusty, but they were clearly happy to be back on stage. They attacked four songs from Out of Exile (due out May 24) with gusto, including lead single "Be Yourself" and the soaring "Doesn't Remind Me," which has hit written all over it.


Although the audience lapped up every moment of it, the band might have gone to the Soundgarden/Rage well too many times. Cornell sounded confident doing a sort of talking-singing approximation of former Rage frontman Zack de la Rocha's rapping on "Sleep Now in the Fire," but a little less so on "Killing in the Name," and his version of "Black Hole Sun" felt perfunctory.


With fully a third of the set culled from past bands, it sometimes felt like Audioslave were giving their own music short shrift. In the past, they've played covers that varied from Rush's "Working Man" to Funkadelic's "Super Stupid," and their unique takes on such disparate material were missed. Still, from a fan's perspective, it was a fabulous show, one that showed a confident band made up of some of hard rock's greatest talents.

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