Short-lived Seattle supergroup Temple Of The Dog has developed an outsized reputation among followers of grunge. Put together as a tribute to Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood—who died of a drug overdose in 1990—the band brought Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell together with most of the musicians who would go on to form Pearl Jam. All friends of Wood, the band’s members stayed together just long enough to play a couple of shows, record a single, well-regarded album, and then go their separate ways. Cornell stayed on with Soundgarden, while Stone Gossard, Jeff Ament, and Mike McCready went on to form Pearl Jam with Eddie Vedder—who was never an official member of Temple, although his duet with Cornell is at the heart of the band’s hit single “Hunger Strike.” (Matt Cameron, meanwhile, continued to serve as the drummer for both bands.)
It’s been 25 years since Temple Of The Dog was initially ignored by record-store consumers. (Once the band’s label realized it had an unofficial Soundgarden/Pearl Jam mash-up on its hands, though, marketing and sales picked up.) To commemorate the anniversary, the band has announced that it’s reissuing the album, and reuniting to go on the tour it never had in its original life. “This is something no one has ever seen,” Cornell wrote in a press release, a statement that’s probably true for anybody who wasn’t hanging out in Seattle rock clubs in November or December of 1990.
Temple Of The Dog has reunited briefly a few times before, usually in the form of Cornell dropping by a Pearl Jam show to sit in on a couple of songs, but never for an actual tour. Proceeds from the tickets for the shows—which will start in Philadelphia and New York before heading to the West Coast and finishing in Seattle—will go toward The Chris And Vicky Cornell Foundation and Pearl Jam’s ominously named Vitalogy Foundation, which provide funds to at-risk kids and community health initiatives, respectively.
Temple Of The Dog tour dates 2016
11/04—Tower Theater—Philadelphia, PA
11/07—Madison Square Garden—New York, NY
11/11—Bill Graham Civic Center—San Francisco, CA
11/14—The Forum—Los Angeles, CA
11/20—Paramount Theater—Seattle, WA