Soundgarden ‘Fell On Black Days’ Live From Lollapalooza 2010

As we all eagerly await the first new album from Soundgarden in well over a decade; some professionally shot footage from the band's big return at Lollapalooza last year has surfaced online. We've got their performance of the grunge classic 'Fell on Black Days' to help get you by until we have new music from the band.

Many have called Soundgarden the 'Led Zeppelin of grunge' due mostly to their blend of Cornell's dynamic vocal matched with the heavy and uncharted weirdness of Kim Thayil's guitar, Matt Cameron's ability to flawlessly play in strange time signatures, and Ben Shepherd's  bass that somehow manages to unite all those seemingly different sounds and make them one. The Zeppelin comparison can also be attributed to the genre sprawling nature of their music; which spans everything from the metal tinged ass kicking of songs like 'Jesus Christ Pose' and 'Mailman' to ballad-esque sing alongs like 'Blow Up the Outside World' and 'Black Hole Sun'. When it comes to enigmatic bands with and artful approach to rock; I guess Soundgarden and Led Zeppelin are two bands that float to the top of that list.

The new album that Soundgarden is currently working on will be quite different from anything we've heard before. You have to think that a band whose sound was evolving every year took 15 years off and all started growing in separate directions. Cornell did a few solo albums (including a foray into hip-hop/pop with producer Timbaland) and worked with the 'Frankenstein' rock outfit Audioslave, while Matt Cameron took over drumming duties for his longtime friends in Pearl Jam (a gig he still has to this day). Ben Shepherd and Kim Thayil laid relatively low in the post-Soundgarden years; Kim made only a few guest appearances on others' records, while Ben did some time as bassist for Mark Lanegan (Screaming Trees) and recorded a solo album that never saw a release.

In recent months both Kim Thayil and Chris Cornell have stated that we will probably not see the first album of new material since 1996's 'Down on the Upside' until next year. The band has been quite open about how much they are enjoying the experience of recording an album without a deadline. This is the first time they have had that luxury and say that the album will be finished when (for lack of a better term) it feels like it's finished. After this long I would rather it be this way than get a half-assed album that was rushed because of a record label's deadline anyhow.

So until then enjoy this footage of the freshly-reunited (this was their 3rd show after re-forming)Soundgarden at last year's Lollapalooza playing 'Fell on Black Days'.