Tired, so tired... but ok here's my official full review:
The band was awesome. I felt like Eric faded a little bit at the tail end of the show, but overall everyone was on point. Robert was the most flawless all night. Dean was solid but he kind of messed up on the Sour Girl solo - wasn't his best effort. Other than that solo he played great. He was more active than usual, maybe even more so than Robert. Scott was pretty active the first three songs, and then really faded from an energy standpoint. He was on point all night lyrically.
Things I noticed:
-A few songs were played VERY slow. Vasoline was the slowest I've ever heard it. Very deliberate and NASTY. For them to keep it that slow and still play it tight was impressive. The tempo was KILLER. The first 3-4 songs they were on FIRE, prime STP.
-Scott's voice was excellent. 10 times better than last year, and better even than the solo tour. Whatever he did, he's back vocally. 100% there.
- Sour Girl vocally was the one song that suffered.
- Trippin was probably the worst performance. They messed up the tempo a couple times and couldn't keep it tight. Eric struggled through it a little bit, and Scott went into "hold me closer closer let me go" in the first chorus instead of "so keep your bankroll". Too bad, that was his only screw up all night.
- All 4 guys were very happy. Robert especially seemed to be having fun. There were ties where Dean would catch fire - he really played fantastic and was all over the place with energy. I saw Scott smile several times.
- I don't know if we've talked about this or not but Scott's tooth is fixed, and he had short black normal looking hair.
- I saw Scott smoke just one cigarette the whole show. Big change from the VR days, maybe the band is stressing him out less
- Dean kissed Scott on the mouth as they came back for the encore. Slightly disturbing and slightly funny to see them back to their homoerotic ways.
- Down vocally, musically and all of the above was just nasty. Completely nasty. A+
- Silvergun Superman was a close second. Disgusting.
- The intro to sour girl was a cool little riff by Dean. Didn't recognize it as a cover, so maybe a lick from the new album???
- As documented by everyone else, Scott's energy is low. At times he looked very tired and rough in his face. It never affected his vocals - which were excellent all night. I'm a big critic of how he sounds and he was truly awesome. My buddy made a good point that "compared to any other singer he's on par or better from an energy standpoint, but for him it's not crazy enough". I will say when he talked in between songs, while brief, he did not stutter or have any of the "uhms and uhhhs". Very clear speaking and concise.
Overall a terrific show and MUCH MUCH better than the two shows I saw last year (Virgin Fest and Voodoo Fest) which were both decent in their own right. Honestly the only thing that separates now from their prime is Scott's energy, because if you close your eyes the whole band and Scott sound as good or better.
