06/16:  Song of the Day.  Temple of the Dog–Hunger Strike

It’s the last week of Spring with Summer officially beginning on Friday.  As we begin to turn the page on yet another season I’m going to head back in time to some of the songs from summer’s past that still to this day remind me of swimming holes, barbecues, and the heat of dog day afternoons.  And since I’ve got music festivals on the brain…here’s a song from my very first music festival.

Mid-August 1992.  Grunge was exploding.  Nirvana was at the top of the heap, but bands like Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains weren’t that far behind.  Following up on the success of the first Lollapalooza in 1991, Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell put together Lollapalooza 2 for another multi-city summer tour. My best friend, my brother, and I had tickets for the show at Lake Fairfax in Reston, Virginia.  This was to be my very first concert…ever.

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Here’s the line-up for Lollapalooza 2 as I remember it (from start to finish):  Lush, Pearl Jam, Jesus and Mary Chain, Soundgarden, Ice Cube, Ministry, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.  Lush opened the main stage with a set that I barely remember taking place.  I recall seeing them on stage but they might as well have been a mime troupe now that I think about it.  It was the band that was to follow Lush that I really wanted to see and as soon as Lush’s set was over there was a crush of people that began moving towards the stage.  I wasn’t the only one psyched to see Eddie Vedder and the rest of Pearl Jam.

There was only problem.  As Pearl Jam took the stage, one band member was missing.  A very high profile band member.  There was no Eddie Vedder.  After a couple minutes of no Eddie, out walked Chris Cornell of Soundgarden.  He said something like “I don’t know all the words so you’re going to have to help me sing”, before adding that we’d have to sing loud enough for Eddie to hear it.  Then suddenly a roar went up towards the back of the crowd.

We were standing about ten or twenty people to the left of center stage about 50 yards back from the line of security officials at the front.  As the roar went up, we looked back just in time to see the sea of people parting behind us and off to the right.  The part grew closer and closer until I could see someone racing down between the crowd.  It was Eddie Vedder.  Turns out he got stuck in traffic about three miles from the venue and as Pearl Jam’s start time drew closer and closer, he just jumped out of the car and began running towards the venue.  He almost got there on time.

Within moments Vedder reached the security barrier, scrambled over it, and was immediately helped up onto the stage.  The crowd went berserk.  Eddie ran off stage for just a moment, returned with a large bottle of water, and began to douse the front row of folks with it.  He turned to Cornell, who was still on stage, said a couple of words, and then Chris Cornell announced to the crowd:  “We haven’t done this one yet on tour, so we’re going to do it for you”.  And so began my first concert and my first music festival.

Hunger Strike by Temple of the Dog

That’s how I remember it all going down.  If you were there too, let me know if you remember it differently.  Also feel free to share your own stories of your first festival from Summers Past.

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