As we approach the 2-year anniversary of his death, Soundgarden fans recently resurfaced the final professionally shot live footage of Chris Cornell, with Soundgarden performing “Incessant Mace” at the Fort Myers Fort Rock Festival on April 30, 2017. You can watch the video below. Cornell made a sad revelation about his relationship with his father before performing the song.
“This is a song called Incessant Mace, and this is about a young man hoping he will grow up to not be anything like his father. That was my sentiment when I was a younger man. For the most part it worked out, though there are a few aspects of his dickheadedness I have inside of me and I can’t help.”
He screamed out when starting the song, “All fathers can be cunts.”
Cornell made several odd and dark remarks in-between songs on Soundgarden’s final tour, which was out of character compared to his warmer and more lighthearted stories he had told on tour throughout the 2010’s at Songbook and Soundgarden shows.
An Alternative Nation reporter even attended a Soundgarden festival performance just a few weeks before Cornell’s death and told me at the time (before Chris died) that he made some weird remarks onstage, but it didn’t occur to me that it was a sign of anything bad, as throughout most of the last decade of his life he appeared to be in a great place.
Cornell said during Soundgarden’s final Detroit performance, “We’re going to a song [called ‘My Wave’]. It’s sort of about tolerance, provided that nobody tells me what to do, nobody tells us what to do. Anyone can do whatever they want, I don’t care what it is. You can fucking burn crosses on your lawn, I don’t give a shit. You can burn your house down, who cares, I don’t. As long as it doesn’t catch someone else’s house on fire.”
