Temple of the Dog, Fantastic Negrito - November 4, 2016 - Tower Theater, Upper Darby, PA

The first ever Temple of the Dog concert took place in the historic Tower Theater in Upper Darby, PA. Temple of the Dog is a supergroup made up of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden who released their only album 25 years ago as a tribute to the lead singer of Mother Love Bone, Andrew Wood. Wood was in the band with Pearl Jam's Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament and was the roommate of Soundgarden's Chris Cornell. After the death of Wood, who died of a heroin overdose in March 1990, Cornell, Gossard, and Ament decided to come together to make a tribute album with songs Cornell wrote as a grieving process. Pearl Jam's Mike McCready and Soundgarden's Matt Cameron also joined to fill out the band. After the album, with the success of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, Temple of the Dog never had the chance to tour, until now.

Fantastic Negrito opened the show and were pretty good. The band out of Oakland played a mix of R&B, funk, and rock. Frontman Xavier Dphrepaulezz was entertaining and was great at interacting with the crowd. He even had some James Brown dance moves in him. Don't think I would see them as a headline act but they were perfect as an opener.

The main floor and balcony filled up quickly and at 9:14pm the light went down. Mother Love Bone's "Man of Golden Words" piano instrumental played over the speakers as the band came to the stage. Chris Cornell greeted the crowd with 'Philadelphia, welcome to the first ever full length Temple of the Dog show.' The crowd roared in response as the opening riff to "Say Hello 2 Heaven" echoed over the crowd. I get chills just writing this.

As expected, Temple of the Dog played all 10 songs off the self-titled album. However, they also played 5 Mother Love Bone songs and 7 covers that included David Bowie's "Quicksand," The Cure's "Fascination Street," the unexpected but exceptional Led Zeppelin cover of "Achilles Last Stand," and the best song of the night, sirens and all, Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" (see video below).

5 of the covers were played during the encore after "Times of Trouble," which would later become Pearl Jam's "Footsteps," the last song of the "Momma-Son" trilogy. The music written by Stone Gossard was kept but Eddie Vedder changed the lyrics to make it his own.

Not only was it an incredible show, it was historic. Seeing my favorite band (minus Eddie Vedder) up close and personal in a smaller venue was surreal. To hear songs that have never been played live before was fantastic. The show was so spectacular, I found my way back to 69th street less than 24 hours later for night two!

Setlist:

Temple of the Dog:
Intro: Man of Golden Words (Mother Love Bone song)(Piano Instrumental)
1.  Say Hello 2 Heaven
2.  Wooden Jesus
3.  Call Me a Dog
4.  Your Savior
5.  Stardog Champion (Mother Love Bone song)
6.  Stargazer (Mother Love Bone song)
7.  Seasons (Chris Cornell song)
8.  Jump Into the Fire (Harry Nilsson cover)
9.  Four Walled World
10. I'm a Mover (Free cover)
11. Pushin Forward Back
12. Hunger Strike
13. Quicksand (David Bowie cover)
14. Heartshine (Mother Love Bone song)
15. Holy Roller (Mother Love Bone song)
16. Reach Down

Encore:
17. Man of Golden Words (Mother Love Bone song) (Chris Cornell solo) (Comfortably Numb tag)
18. Times of Trouble
19. Achilles Last Stand (Led Zeppelin cover)
20. Baby Lemonade (Syd Barrett cover)
21. Fascination Street (The Cure cover)
22. War Pigs (Black Sabbath cover)

Encore 2:
23. All Night Thing