In October 1991, the Seattle bands were no longer operating solely within their own ecosystem. Records had been released, radio was responding, and Los Angeles had become the place where momentum gathered. The RIP Magazine anniversary party, held at the Hollywood Palladium, captured that moment almost incidentally, not because it was intended to define a movement, but because it took place while the shift was already underway.
The Palladium, a four-thousand-capacity venue, filled with a mix of musicians, industry figures, and fans, many of whom were already aware that the bands coming out of Seattle were changing the landscape. Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains appeared on the same bill, an alignment that still felt natural at the time, reflecting a scene where personal relationships and shared history mattered more than hierarchy. The night unfolded less like a curated industry showcase and more like a gathering that had simply grown too large to fit into a smaller room.
The way this lineup came together was less calculated than it might appear in hindsight. As preparations for the RIP anniversary party were underway and the Palladium had been secured, the bill was still largely open when Susan Silver got in touch. At the time she was managing Soundgarden and co-managing Alice in Chains, while remaining closely connected to the broader Seattle circle that included Pearl Jam. Her initial proposal was for Soundgarden to play and headline the event, a condition that reflected both the band’s standing within the scene and the respect they commanded among their peers. Soon after, the idea expanded to include Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains as well, transforming what could have been a single-headliner celebration into something that more accurately reflected the interconnected nature of the Seattle bands at that point. The possibility of a Temple of the Dog performance followed naturally from those conversations, emerging not as a promotional device but as a shared understanding among the people involved, given the project’s origins and the relationships behind it.
Pearl Jam played earlier in the evening, still at a stage where their live presence felt unguarded and immediate. Eddie Vedder’s voice had not yet become a template for an entire generation, but its defining qualities were already evident, delivered without theatricality or affectation. The band moved easily between backstage and audience after their set, reinforcing the sense that the usual distance imposed by success had not yet settled in.
Soundgarden followed with a long, heavy set that justified their position at the top of the bill. Within the Seattle scene, they were widely regarded as the band that had already figured out how to translate experimentation and weight into something capable of commanding large spaces. Their performance anchored the night and set the conditions for what would become its most remembered moment.
For the closing jam, Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder returned to the stage together to perform “Hunger Strike,” the Temple of the Dog song written in the wake of Andrew Wood’s death. They were joined by Matt Cameron, Mike McCready, Stone Gossard, and Jeff Ament, a configuration that embodied the overlapping histories of Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden, and Pearl Jam. As the song reached its peak, both singers left the stage and dove into the crowd, disappearing into the mass on the Palladium floor before being pulled back toward the front.
The RIP party has since been remembered as the moment when the Seattle scene appeared fully formed in Los Angeles, even though the event itself was informal and unceremonious. It occupied a narrow space between eras, still close enough to the original community to feel unguarded, yet late enough that the larger forces shaping the industry were already closing in. Within months, the same bands would be operating on different schedules, in different countries, under very different conditions.
What the night ultimately preserved was a snapshot of a scene in transition, captured before the distance between underground culture and global exposure became impossible to bridge. The RIP Magazine anniversary party did not create what came to be known as the Seattle movement, but it documented the point at which it could no longer be contained within its place of origin.
You can watch a very raw and old school footage from this event on our YouTube channel
