Godsmack frontman Sully Erna told WFMZ-TV that his band decided to pay tribute to Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington because “we feel like it’s kind of like our obligation to honor those guys that have left us with really beautiful music and left us a little bit too soon.”
Prior to performing Linkin Park’s “Crawling” and Temple of the Dog’s “Hunger Strike”, Erna told the crowd: “I just wanna bring up something here quick. I don’t wanna harp on this too long, ’cause I want you guys to leave here in a really good mood with a good positive feeling, man. But, as you know, this last couple of years, it’s been pretty tragic with all the artists that we’ve lost. It’s been actually mind-blowing to me how many amazing performers, amazing voices we’ve lost to some really sad, tragic situations, and some of them were very close friends of ours.”
“We just decided to do this today,” he continued. “We haven’t really rehearsed this, but we wanted to do something for you guys and we wanted to do something in honor of our friends that have left us with some beautiful music on this planet. So I think this one’s gonna kind of speak for itself.”
