Chris pulls the strings off Peter Thorn's guitar - thanks to Lisa for the photo

A (spontaneous and unscheduled) first outing for Gun by audience request, not to mention a brief helping of Reach Down and the first time Pushing Forward Back's been heard live for 15 years. In the acoustic section, Chris played The Beatles' You've Got To Hide Your Love Away. Declared the best of the Pacific North-West shows by those who went to all three, the marathon show left Chris almost too tired to speak at the meet-and-greet which followed - although not too tired to sign some personal autographs for a street teamer's kids.

thanks to Lisa for the setlist - if anyone has the full list as played including order of acoustic set, please contact me.

by dolly

This venue is super small and has a balcony that wraps around the entire place, so since the balcony is so awesome and so low and close, a lot of people headed up there so they could sit/drink etc. We had no problems at all walking right up to the front and center.

At this venue there is a support column right on the stage, kind of in the way, but they put glow in the dark tape on it to try to prevent band/pole collisions. One of the first things Chris said on stage was how great it was to be back at the Roseland and that he remembered that pole. He said something like "if you get too into the music, all of a sudden it's like FUCK" (as he pretended to run into it, and he peeled one of the glow in the dark tapes off as he pretended to fall down from the collision).

Right after this they did Let Me Drown, and then Outshined. After that was Show Me How to Live and Chris motioned to our signs and said "those are the same, they're identical" then he looked at us again and went into the next song (totally teasing us like he was going to play it lol) which was No Such Thing. Then after the song he went over to Yogi and said "should we play that for them? it's up to you" and Yogi said something to him in his ear, and then we were all going crazy and saying "PLEASE" really loud and just going nuts, and then Chris continued to tease us saying "it's up to Yogi" and they continued on to play You Know My Name, lol. SUCH teases! It was nuts haha! They then did Hunger Strike. Then after that song, Chris went over to Yogi again and said "Should we play that for them now? Come on?" It was like Chris was totally wanting to play it for us! He made it seem like it was all up to Yogi to decide though lol, and Lydia and I gave Yogi so much love! We screamed "YOGI, Please!" and we rocked out so much in front of him whenever he came up to the front! So then Chris reached over to grab both our signs! He said "how long have you girls had these signs for?" He started looking at them and there were a few differences and he started to point them out (because before he had thought they were identical) So he said something like "oh, this one has this on it, and this one is like this etc." Then he went up and HE HELD THEM UP FOR THE ENTIRE CROWD! One sign in each hand, he held them up and said "Should we play this song for them?" The crowd went absolutely NUTS! He then saw their reaction and gave us back our signs, Chris smiled at us again and they went right into ZERO CHANCE!!! OMG! AS SOON as that first note started, I had tears streaming down my face! I couldn't believe it! I have NEVER cried at a concert before and I NEVER predicted that would ever happen! I had no idea I would react that way to him playing that song, but I think it was really special because he played it FOR US! I looked over at Lydia and she had tears streaming down her face too, we were BOTH crying right in front of Chris!

Oh man, so Laurie took a pic of us tearing our eyes out lol, then when they finished the song, Chris looked over at us again and smiled and looked touched! Lydia and I both screamed "THANK YOU" and I think he said a little "thank you" back! WOW. It was super emotional and I had no idea that was going to happen! Then they continued to rock out and Chris was being so playful and joking around with our whole group up there! They did Be Yourself and then Spoonman and then the rest of the band left and Chris picked up his acoustic.

He did YOU'VE GOT TO HIDE YOUR LOVE AWAY!! OMG! It was soo beautiful! But during this song, some guy started fighting right behind Heidi and at the end of the song, Chris said something like "I guess we should be careful what we play tonight if you guys are moshing during the Beatles, good thing I didn't play something like I Am the Walrus!" And at the point Chris did this little rock out pose and screamed "or we'd have people fighting screaming NO, I'M the FUCKING WALRUS, urgh!" and he shook his head down and looked like he was going to punch someone haha. Everyone started laughing. He also did Call Me a Dog, Preaching the End of the World, Can't Change Me!!! Like a Stone, Fell on Black Days, and Doesn't Remind me (and the band joined him part way through). They then went into Cochise, Ty Cobb, Arms Around Your Love, Black Hole Sun, What You Are, and Rusty Cage. At this point the band left the stage and then came back for the encore. Laurie wanted to hear either Gun or Moth and Chris kept on looking at her sign, then finally she tried to toss it on stage and I guess the air conditioning was on and it flew down onto the floor, and Chris laughed at us! Hahaha, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say "what can i do now? if you can't throw it up, how can i play it?" He totally had this playful look in his eyes though.

They did Be Yourself and then Spoonman, Laurie got her sign back and tossed it on stage and got it on there this time. He saw it, and he went over to the other guys, they huddled together for a bit, and Chris mentioned something like "this is a really old song" and that he hoped they would remember how it went lol. so they went right into GUN!! (I can't remember when this was though, if it was before or after the encore) They just did part of it, but it was INCREDIBLE! FUCK YEAH!! The place was on fire! And this crowd was AMAZING! They weren't pushing into us like in Seattle! Everyone was rocking out, but no one was hurting us! We were able to really enjoy the show without feeling like we were being super squished.

When they came back from their encore, they did Burden in My Hand then Chris said that they were going to do a song he hadn't done for 15 years! Then they went into PUSHING FORWARD BACK!!! That was amazing! He then saw Steph's sign, and they did Wave Goodbye!!! We all got our songs played, that was sooo awesome of Chris! They then did Seasons (oh, they also did Reach Down at one point!) And the Star Spangled Banner. I believe this is the first time they've ever done that? And Say Hello To Heaven, and Slaves and Bulldozers with Whole Lotta Love at the end. I'm sure I'm missing some, they played for about 3 hours though!!! And they gave us some amazing songs, gems, that they haven't really played much! It was such a great night! Perfect way to end our trip!!! This show was definitely the best by far out of the three!

thanks to Lisa for the photo

by fd2blk

Just to say how incredible the show was last night at the Roseland. The band seems to really enjoy playing with each other and it showed. They played for a super long time (almost 3 hours, can somebody confirm?), and threw in a bunch of songs that weren't on the setlist. They even did a very very rough version of the National Anthem after Chris commented about having never sang it before. Front of the crowd in the center, it was probably the best show of my life.. and I just want to thank the Chris and the rest of the band. And for anybody who ever said that Chris' voice was gone, they need to see him on this tour.

by Steph

Portland was an amazement that just boggles my brain. I can't freaking believe some of of the stuff that Chris and the band just pulled out of the hat, just a fuckin' incredible setlist. Here are just some of the gems that I can remember. My mind was completely and absolutely blown. He did Zero Chance for 2 of the pnw concert goers, Dolly and Lydia. They did a Beatles song—Hey, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away—when a drunk guy in the crowd got rowdy and starting shoving people. He then joked that if they did "I Am a Walrus" that people would start punching each other out. Another song that blew us away was Pushing Forward Back. He said that they hadn't done that song in over 15 years and had only practiced it like for 5 minutes. It was fucking great, practice or not.

He then said something about let's try another song we haven't practiced yet, how about the National Anthem? I thought he was totally joking and then Yogi started wailing away on his guitar just like Jimi Hendrix and Chris started freaking singing the National Anthem. God Bless America, for fucking sure. We were all just really in shock at this point. They guys were obviously having so much fun, it was just the most fun to watch. Laurie had a sign with Gun and Moth and Chris absolutely loves Laurie (I can tell by the way he looks at her) so of course he wanted to accommodate her. He had told her that they were going to learn Moth for her in a couple of weeks (!). We couldn't believe it when the band when into Gun, we were freakin' going nuts! Just amazing. That song live is something to behold. Laurie was a fuckin happy camper. I was requesting Wave Goodbye during the acoustic set, but he didn't do it, so I thought that I had had my turn the night before, which I was totally ok with. Hey, a girl can't be too greedy right? But during the encore set, which was already the most amazing set possible with a combo of Burden in My Hand, Seasons with part of In My Time of Dying, which is so good you want to slap somebody, then Say Hello 2 Heaven, then the whole Slaves and Bulldozers masterpiece, he decided to throw something else in. He walked over to the guys in the back of the stage after doing Seasons and was talking to them and I asked Laurie "is he gonna give us a surprise?" Or I should have said another surprise, we had had so many already, then they came out with Wave Goodbye, which I totally didn't get at first because I wasn't expecting it. Laurie yelled at me "That's Wave Goodbye!" and damned if it wasn't! Just too much. It was perfect right before Say Hello 2 Heaven and he said something about how that song had similar meaning behind it (as Wave Goodbye) but that it was more uplifting.

Well, after that we were some happy happy fans. I just really couldn't believe that we were hearing what we were hearing. Chris was doing a lot of special stuff for Portland and for us in particular, because he knew we were at the other 2 shows and I think he was just showing us a lotta love for our efforts. Holy crap, it was something. The S&B they did continued to surprise us. At the time he would normally do Overfloater and then 4th of July, he did part of Overfloater and then went into part of Reach Down! I had been wanting to hear Reach Down ever since I heard in an interview in the summer that he was learning that song with the band. It was so great just hearing a little bit of it. Then Jason went into his drum solo and when they went back into S&B, they did the part where Chris gets down on the floor below the stage in front of Peter but this time he laid down on the stage underneath Peter (yes I said underneath Peter) and starting ripping off his guitar strings while Peter played and then Chris played Peter's guitar with only one string on it. It was the craziest thing I have ever seen. I guess Chris wanted to take a rest, ha ha. We were all standing there with our mouths open, shocked and amazed. My jaw hurt so bad from smiling so much and I was thankful too that I wasn't getting pummeled by fans because that pain and the pain of all of the smiling may have made me pass out.

The Portland venue was the smallest, the lighting was really bad, but the fans were just so great with the exception of the asshole shoving people in the beginning (and thank you to the security guards for throwing him out), and it was definitely the most intimate Chris Cornell show I had ever witnessed, even more so than Austin. Now that is saying a fucking lot. To top the whole amazing experience off, I actually got to meet the man afterwards, thanks to Laurie and another street team leader who were offered passes.

...So the show ends, but our grins don't and we line up to go to meet the guys...they were so much freakin' fun, but it seemed that they were pretty tired afterwards, which of course makes sense. So I felt higher than a kite but had wanted to say some serious shit to Chris, but didn't think that it was going to work out. There was no way I could really bring up Hurricane Katrina and why I requested Wide Awake, it didn't feel right. And I couldn't tell him why Wave Goodbye means so much to me, that 2 of my best friends dying of cancer was the reason why I wanted him to play that song for me. It was all downer stuff.

And Chris looked completely exhausted. He had just played 3 shows in 3 nights that were all at least 2 ½ hours long, and he probably just wanted to be out of there. He wasn't looking up at all, he was just signing peoples' stuff and not saying anything. I felt like I needed to say something to him, but it felt weird, like I was invading his need to just have some time to do what he wanted.

I walked up to where Jason and Peter were standing and started talking to them about my Nashville setlist and had Jason sign it since Peter had already signed it in San Francisco. Peter looked at it and said it was "old school". I'm not sure what he meant by that, but he said that it was his setlist and the numbers on it were his times. So when I was talking to them, I was aware that Chris was next to Peter, and I felt really nervous that I was talking to the other guys and not acknowledging him. It just seemed strange, that he was being so quiet the whole time. So I walked over to where Chris was sitting and started handing him stuff to sign. I felt like an idiot because that just seems so trivial, so then I introduced myself and held out my hand to shake and he did. I said "it is great to finally meet you and not just have conversations with you while you're on stage". He just looked at me funny, but I think it was because he was just too tired to say anything maybe. His hair was all wild and sticking up too, think he may be going for the Wolfmother look.

Then I handed him some pictures of my kids at his show in Atlanta for him to sign, and started telling him about how my daughter, who was 4, loved Outshined and that in the picture my son, who was 6, was dancing and doing the Jesus Christ Pose down on the ground with all of his arms and legs up in the air. He looked up at me and said "really?" like he thought that was cool. That was when he gave me "the stare" with those eyes. Except I felt so bad for him, he looked so so tired. Then he asked me their names and how to spell Katie and wrote "To Katie" on her picture and he wrote "Thanx Josh!" on his picture. I tell ya, freakin' priceless, those pictures are.

Lisa with the band at the meet-and-greet

Chris Cornell Fan Page © Clare O'Brien 2007