Stone Temple Pilots at the Borgata
http://rusty-halo.com/wordpress/?p=2669
Due South: “Some Like it Red.” Okay, Fraser makes an incredibly unconvincing woman. But Fraser and Ray Vecchio are so utterly OTP! I don’t know how in the world I’m going to deal when the new Ray shows up.
Oh, and, hey, I got home from Atlantic City alive. Obviously. I was home by 3:30am, which isn’t bad at all. And I’m so glad I went. I was expecting the show to be bad, hoping for mediocre, and was really surprised that it turned out to be good. Really good! The band was tight, they all seemed to get along, their stage banter was funny, Weiland was on form and perfectly coherent. I had a nice spot, in the third row on the far left, despite having arrived around 9pm, shortly before they went on. (Stupid bus got stuck in traffic.) The Borgata is the perfect venue for seeing big bands in a small space.
All my criticisms of Stone Temple Pilots stand-Core is good but most of the songs sound the same, and their subsequent records are mostly filler with around three quality songs for singles. Their lyrics are thoroughly uninspired, and they haven’t an original bone in their musical body. And they were always blatantly money-driven, unlike similar bands of their era who seemed largely motivated by, y’know, actual musical creativity.
That said… I like their sound, especially from the Core and Purple records. That’s my era, y’know? You couldn’t listen to rock radio-or watch MTV-in the mid ’90s without knowing all their singles by heart, and they were better than 99% of the other grunge wanna-bes (did you see that Candlebox is making a comeback? Candlebox!) And I think that Weiland, although not the brightest guy, generally seems to have his heart in the right place. When I saw him with Velvet Revolver at Jones Beach he gave a speech about how much Clear Channel sucks, and last night he talked (with a minimum of incomprehensible rambling) about how he supports the troops but not the government’s policies, and that the two are entirely different things, and that he encourages the audience to educate themselves about politics instead of vegging out to reality TV. Aww. Not that I take political advice from Scott Weiland, but I think that it’s sweet that he’s trying.
And it was so good to see him in his element. He just fits with Stone Temple Pilots so much better than with Velvet Revolver; it was like night and day, compared to the (wow, at least ten) Velvet Revolver shows that I saw. It was wonderful to see “Interstate Love Song” and “Sex Type Thing” played properly by the guys who wrote them. As my favorite part of the Velvet Revolver set was always the STP songs, it was like all the good of that experience, distilled. I got to hear “Plush”! And “Dead and Bloated”! And “Creep”! And “Big Empty”! And “Crackerman”! And they closed with an amazing rendition of “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart,” with the audience singing the “I’m not dead / I’m not for sale” line at the top of its lungs by itself every time but the last. They played every song I wanted to hear, which isn’t that hard considering they played every one of their singles and all of the good songs from Core, but hey, at least that means they know what they’re good at.
They all seemed really happy-it was one of the DeLeo brother’s birthday, and Scott wished him a happy one very nicely. And they even commented that it was one of the best shows of the tour, which I definitely believe given the disastrous tour reports I’d read in advance.
So, yay! I’m really glad I went, and I hope they can keep it together for the rest of the tour. :)
Current Mood:
lazy
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