Stone Temple Pilots defy expectations at the Bowl
Review: Soaring strongly, the reunited '90s band wiped the grime off its troubled past with a performance worthy of the giants of its era.
By BEN WENER
The Orange County Register
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Had you asked me a little less than two months ago if I thought Stone Temple Pilots stood any chance of delivering anything but a bloated mess Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl, I never would have stopped laughing.
If you caught STP back in May on "The Jimmy Kimmel Show," during the '90s hard-rock favorite's first television appearance since suddenly reuniting, you'd understand why.
Even allowing for the poor mixing of most variety shows, which tend to over-amplify vocals (no matter if they're any good, and these weren't) while burying everything else, this ballyhooed return was still a monumentally awful performance. So bad, actually, that it often seemed as if singer Scott Weiland, the DeLeo brothers (guitarist Dean and bassist Robert) and drummer Eric Kretz had just started rehearsing earlier that week.
Little surprise, then, that the majority of reviews that emerged as STP made its way home to Southern California for its first major appearance since the 2000 Weenie Roast at Angel Stadium ranged from just-OK to same-as-it-ever-was.
His stint in the relatively short-lived supergroup Velvet Revolver may have kept his physique toned, but it never did anything for Weiland's nasal voice, a limited instrument in the first place. And though the DeLeos maintained their chops by forming a short-lived supergroup of their own – Army of Anyone, with Filter's Richard Patrick – that hardly guaranteed they'd be able to serve up STP's staples sharply, particularly in such large spaces.
Besides, had these guys really been gone long enough for us to truly miss them? And hadn't VR's ability to blast through "Crackerman" and "Sex Type Thing" on tour proven that the STP sound could be easily replicated with just about any L.A. guitar-slingers?
Boy, was that last dismissal unfair. What was most evident throughout Stone Temple Pilots' deeply impressive 19-song set Tuesday night is that, as with its more celebrated peers (Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden), there's distinct chemistry at work within this oft-troubled unit.
Velvet Revolver, by comparison, was merely a facsimile, as it was whenever it tackled Guns N' Roses songs. Hearing Kretz and the DeLeos instinctively lay way back into the turnaround beats of "Big Empty" and "Vasoline," however, was just one of several face-slapping reminders that no one plays these modern-rock radio fixtures quite like their originators.
The lessons to be learned here, then, are these: 1) As always, never underestimate the prestige-power of the Hollywood Bowl – how playing such an auspicious venue tends to bring out the best in headliners. 2) Stone Temple Pilots were, and in many ways still are, a much better band than its damning critics will ever admit.
Weiland is all too aware of that second point. Hard to say which came first – was he born aggressively testy or did all of STP's bad press put that chip on his shoulder? – yet it's undeniable that lesser Nirvana knockoffs like Bush and Silverchair got fairer shakes than the Pilots, whose popularity always seemed to be held against them.
"You people, the fans – you got it," a newly-blonde Weiland told the ecstatic crowd before the mood switched from the Alice in Chains sludge of "Lounge Fly" to the McCartneyesque stomp of "Lady Picture Show." "But of course any artist wants to impress the people who write about him – the journalists. And that didn't happen on that first record."
Nor did it happen on the second or fourth, or especially the third and fifth. It also didn't help that, with Weiland spiraling further into a drugged-out abyss, the band often wasn't able to tour – and when it did, it was never in peak form.
Thus, this tour – and this Bowl bash in particular – is a way of righting many long-standing wrongs, a chance for the band to finally unleash its full thunder and merit a place alongside the giants of its era.
True, its music was always an amalgam (whose isn't?) of easily discerned parts, much of it a cross between Seattle grunge and Sunset Strip flash. Yet consider how much of STP's music has endured, and how well. The seven selections it resurrected from its 1992 debut "Core" – including a ferocious "Dead & Bloated," a more psych-metallic "Wicked Garden" and spot-on handlings of "Plush" and "Creep" – are more indelible than ever, and still sound as fresh as anything Linkin Park has tossed onto KROQ lately.
Likewise, most anything else the group dug up from its catalog – from riff monsters like "Vasoline" and "Down" to unexpectedly strong fifth-album cuts like "Too Cool Queenie" and "Coma" – was executed with energy like they rarely exhibited during their heyday.
Not everything was so flawless – "Interstate Love Song" was a tad dusty, while "Sour Girl" lacked the sad sultriness that makes it so captivating on record. But that so much of this performance would rise to a new level of excellence for this bunch – that Weiland's persona could be reined in and his vocals given extra oomph, that the DeLeos and Kretz haven't lost a lick of potency – well, that just didn't figure at all.
Thank the Bowl. "What a (bleepin') amazing experience," Weiland said at the evening's outset, after Frank Black (under his nom de Pixies, Black Francis) roared through 40 minutes of material hardly anyone knew. "To play this venue …" – Robert started picking out the Beatles' "Day Tripper" bass line – "well, there are probably five things you remember in your entire life as the most important things. This will go down as one of them."
It will also go down as the night Stone Temple Pilots finally got it all together – if not a completely crowning achievement, then at least a performance I wonder if they even realized they still had in them. They're said to be recording a sixth album come fall. After so many false starts and forced groundings, maybe there's hope for their future after all.
Contact the writer: 714-796-2248
