Tag: review

KeepCup Heat

A few weeks ago I bought a KeepCup. I had recently cleaned out a stack of to go cups from my home office and was not happy with myself. A reusable cup was long overdue (I actually had an old one, but it was horribly stained and affected the tast of coffee).

I did some research online and decided on the single wall cork version (the double wall was way too expensive). I shopped on Amazon for a bit, but ended up finding the one I wanted at Pilgrim Coffee House in Colwood.

I love the looks of it, and that fact that I am using way less paper cups. I’ve also found that the drinking coffee from the cup, with or without the lid does not alter the taste at all. My big gripe with the cup (and this would apply to every single one in their inventory) is that their band is too skinny. The single wall glass transmits a lot of heat, so the band becomes very important. The skinny band is not wide enough to allow enough fingers on it to grip the cup and drink from it.

The workaround is to wait a couple minutes for the heat to dissipate and the coffee to come to a more tolerable temp. I also recently started a new job at an office, so now I feel like I need a second one to keep there in addition to a home one. Sadly, at over $30 each, this won’t happen any time soon.

Anticipated Voice

What a weekend. I’ll recap that in another post. This post is all about Friday night. Soundgarden concert. My most anticipated concert in a very long time.

How was it? Fan-fucking-tastic. They played songs from all their albums, and they nailed them all. They played tons of my favorite songs, and even played a couple that I was not expecting. Drawing flies was the first one. On the album it is a fast paced song with non stop singing. Live it was off the hook. When the song was done Ben Shepherd (the bassist) bumped fists with Matt Cameron (the drummer). They knew they nailed that one, the other song that I never expected to hear live was Born on the Fourth of July. When they started playing that, I nearly lost my mind.

They just kept playing and playing too. They played for over two hours before they left the stage.

Chris Cornell’s voice was outstanding too. He was hitting, and holding, all the high notes in all the songs they played. The biggest example of this was during Ugly Truth. Sounded so awesome.

The light show was awesome too. There were some very cool projections on the backdrop that were animated at times. The light bars would get reconfigured between songs, so it always seemed new and different. The backdrop animations for Drawing Flies was fast paced and chaotic, matching the song perfectly.

Rusty Cage, Jesus Christ Pose, Slaves and Bulldozers, Spoonman, Gun, Loud Love, Beyond the Wheel, Outshined, and a whole lot more.

In case you can’t tell, I had a great time at the show. I would have loved to have heard some new material though, that would have been killer.

We missed the first opening band, but it sounds like I didn’t miss all that much anyway. Queens of the Stone Age were good. I definitely enjoyed their set, but they seemed a little subdued.

At the end of the encore when the lights came up, I was happy that I was there and had seen the show, but sad it was over.

The setlist:

  • Searching With My Good Eye Closed
  • Spoonman
  • Gun
  • Jesus Christ Pose
  • Blow Up the Outside World
  • The Day I Tried to Live
  • My Wave
  • Burden in My Hand
  • Ugly Truth
  • Fell on Black Days
  • Loud Love
  • Drawing Flies
  • Black Hole Sun
  • Outshined
  • Rusty Cage
  • Superunknown
  • 4th of July

    • Encore:

  • Beyond the Wheel
  • Mailman
  • Slaves & Bulldozers

via setlist.fm

Songbook Scream

Friday night was one awesome concert that I was looking forward to for a very long time. Not something I say very often. Chris Cornell came to Victoria on his Songbook tour. This was a solo tour with him playing mostly acoustic.

In a word: wow.

The show was awesome. One of the best concerts I’ve been to. It helped that I got some pretty awesome seats, about 10th row, almost centre.

He played a bunch of Soundgarden songs, some of his solo work, a couple tracks from Audioslave, and a few covers too. It was mesmerizing to watch him play and hear him talk. He bantered with the crowd quite a bit and was quite funny at times. Listening to him sing was the reason we were all there though. His voice sounded great the whole night too. He has such range, and power throughout his entire range. He still has his signature scream that he can hold for a long time.

Hearing so many of the songs done acoustically was interesting. Sometimes it took me a while to figure out what song he was playing, and other times I knew right away. The most surprising song I heard was Mind Riot. Loved it. Hunger Strike was fucking amazing. That for me was the highlight of the show to hear that one live. Seasons was a great song to hear.

Were there any disappointments? No. Every song was enjoyable. I was surprised to not hear Spoonman. I was hoping to hear Outshined too. At the end of the show I was thoroughly happy to have spent the money on the tickets. He put on a great show, sounded great, and was very entertaining.

The setlist:

  1. Be Yourself (Audioslave cover)
  2. Ground Zero
  3. Redemption Song (Bob Marley cover)
  4. Sweet Euphoria
  5. Can’t Change Me
  6. As Hope and Promise Fade
  7. Call Me A Dog (Temple of the Dog cover)
  8. Sunshower
  9. Fell on Black Days (Soundgarden cover)
  10. Burden in My Hand (Soundgarden cover)
  11. I Am the Highway (Audioslave cover)
  12. State Trooper (Bruce Springsteen cover)
  13. When I’m Down
  14. Seasons
  15. All Night Thing (Temple of the Dog cover)
  16. Thank You (Led Zeppelin cover)
  17. Man of Golden Words/Comfortably Numb
  18. Say Hello 2 Heaven (Temple of the Dog cover)
  19. Mind Riot (Soundgarden cover)
  20. Like Suicide (Soundgarden cover)
  21. Like a Stone (Audioslave cover)
  22. Doesn’t Remind Me (Audioslave cover)
  23. A Day in the Life (The Beatles cover)

    24. Encore:

  24. Scream
  25. Hunger Strike (Temple of the Dog cover)
  26. Better Man (Pearl Jam cover)
  27. Billie Jean (Michael Jackson cover)
  28. Black Hole Sun(Soundgarden cover)
  29. Imagine (John Lennon cover)

via setlist