Soundgarden to Play Seahawks Halftime Show With Taylor Momsen and Mike McCready
Soundgarden will perform the halftime show at the Seattle Seahawks' 2026 season home opener on September 9 at Lumen Field, joined by Pretty Reckless singer Taylor Momsen and Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready, according to Billboard.
The Seahawks confirmed the booking in a "Countdown to Kickoff" post on the team's official website, which listed the NFC West opener against the New England Patriots as the backdrop for the performance (Seahawks.com). A promotional image announcing the show featured Soundgarden members Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Ben Shepherd posing alongside Momsen and McCready.
McCready will also play the US National Anthem before kick-off, on behalf of the Washington Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to exonerate wrongly convicted people. The pregame schedule includes a Salute 250 Kickoff Concert by country star Luke Bryan at 2:30 p.m. PT, three hours before the game begins.
Momsen stepping into the Soundgarden lineup is not new territory. She first sang with the band at "I Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell," a January 2019 benefit at the Forum in Los Angeles honouring the band's late frontman. Cornell died in May 2017 at age 52. In November 2025, Momsen subbed in for Cornell at Soundgarden's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction, performing the band's songs "Rusty Cage" and "Black Hole Sun."
The halftime booking lands as Soundgarden prepare to release more of Cornell's final recordings. The band said they are mixing an eight-track album built from the last group of songs recorded with Cornell, produced by Terry Date. The material draws on demos the members began working on in 2013–2014 and returned to in 2015–2016. No release date has been announced.
For a Seattle audience, the connections run deep. Soundgarden formed in the city in 1984 and became one of the bands most identified with the grunge movement that defined Seattle's sound in the early 1990s. Pearl Jam, McCready's band, followed a similar path out of the same scene. The Seahawks' choice to put both on the same bill at Lumen Field ties the city's football opener to its musical identity in a way few NFL markets could match.
The game itself kicks off the Seahawks' 2026 regular season against a Patriots franchise that has its own recent roster overhaul underway. But for many in the stands, the halftime set may carry as much weight as the scoreline.
