Love it or hate it ... one can't deny that Chester has really embraced this & has shown great improvement in singing the songs .... he sounds pretty damn good here.
In a karaoke way, it's awesome.
A band playing their own music is karaoke. Complete logic there.
Karaoke is a very unsophisticated way to characterize what this is. I don't love it either, but it's not karaoke.
If I had to compare it to anything, it'd be a grandiose version of American Idol, with Chester being the winner and going on tour without putting out a full album and singing all the songs he covered on the show plus a few new ones. Yes, they sound nice together live, Chester's a great singer, but this is never something I will pay to see. Had these guys changed their name, put out an album of fresh songs and toured off that, (a la Talk Show, AOA) with a few STP songs peppered in here and there, I would go see that. But they're not even performing all the songs off their FIVE song EP. They're not separating themselves enough from the "old" STP. This is just Chester Bennington, a very talented singer, doing his best Scott Weiland impression. And I don't blame him. These are Scott's songs, someone he idolized growing up. I'd be doing the same damn thing.
If they really want to carve out a niche for themselves and have this work, they need to do the following:
- Play all the songs off their EP (which I don't even like all that much, but it needs to happen)
- Replace a few STP songs with covers on their setlist (we've seen some fantastic Camp Freddy performances out of Chester)
- Record a full length album
- Change their name (not happening, but couldn't leave this one out)
- Have Chester attend a writer's workshop or date with Maya Angelou
Not expecting any of this, but I don't think 3 of the 5 is asking too much. For now, I'm just crossing my fingers Scott pulls a rabbit out of his ass and his solo album is awesome/happens
