Soundgarden members reformed last week onstage for the first time since 1997, the only exception being that frontman and founder Chris Cornell was not part of the reunion.

Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd took to the stage as part of a Tom Morello solo show at Seattle's Crocodile Cafe. Morello played rhythm guitar duties during the brief set, with Tad singer Tad Doyle providing vocals.

The band performed Hunted Down, Nothing To Say and Spoonman on the night.

The reformation goes somewhat against the grain of Cornell's recent insistence that Soundgarden would only ever reunite if all the orginal band members were involved.

In fact, Cornell was at great pains to spell this out to NME during a recent interview, promoting the Scream album, when the subject of a Soundgarden reformation was touted. 

"When Soundgarden broke up, my discussions with the rest of the band was 'We have to have an agreement that we will never tour Soundgarden - Soundgarden will never exist - without it being a unanimous decision and that everyone who was in the band is in the band'," Cornell explained.

"We never, ever entertained the idea of doing it (reforming) any other way. It has to be how it was and who it was. We put an agreement in place that created a situation where it can't be any other way than that."

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