During his concert in London on Tuesday night, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder addressed the death of his friend Chris Cornell.
Vedder never referred to Cornell by name, but spoke about his ongoing struggle with the loss of a "really close friend."
"I want to be there for the family, be there for the community, be there for my brothers in my band, certainly the brothers in his band," said Vedder. "But these things will take time, but my friend is going to be gone forever and I will just have to . . . These things take time and I just want to send this out to everyone who was affected by it, and they all back home and here appreciate it so deeply, the support and the good thoughts of a man who was a . . . you know he wasn't just a friend, he was someone I looked up to like my older brother."
Vedder said that a few days after Cornell's death, he awoke in the middle of the night flooded by memories of the Soundgarden singer.
"About two days after the news, I think it was the second night we were sleeping in this little cabin near the water, a place he would've loved," he said. "And all these memories started coming in about 1:30 a.m. like woke me up. Like big memories, memories I would think about all the time. Like the memories were big muscles. And then I couldn't stop the memories. And trying to sleep it was like if the neighbors had the music playing and you couldn't stop it. But then it was fine because then it got into little memories. It just kept going and going and going."
There is no video of Vedder's emotional speech, due to the singer's "performance etiquette policy" that prevents filming at his concerts, but a full transcript of his words were posted on a message board on Pearl Jam's website.
Vedder wrapped up his speech with a message of hope, sharing his love with Cornell.
"I didn't want to be sad, wanted to be grateful not sad," he said. "I'm still thinking about those memories and I will live with those memories in my heart and I will . . . love him forever."
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