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May 27, 2008
Stone Temple Pilots at the Chevy
It seems that singers, as a whole, are a curious breed, always looking for a new sound to pair with their voices. Singers in rock bands often use solo albums as a way to fill that need, often with less-than-stellar results (am I right, Mr. Jagger?).
Scott Weiland is a bit of a different story. He didn’t leave his original band, Stone Temple Pilots, to pursue a musical wanderlust. Rather, the band collapsed under the weight of his substance abuse and other personal problems.
He had already put out a solo disc in 1998, so his next musical re-invention would be as the frontman for Velvet Revolver, which included remnants of Guns ’N’ Roses. That group released two records before Weiland announced earlier this year that he was leaving the band to reform Stone Temple Pilots.
It turned out that going backward was a step in the right direction for Weiland.
Velvet Revolver had some commercial success, but nothing by that band seemed as catchy as an STP song. It was almost as if Slash and Duff and company just needed a big-name singer to take the place of Axl Rose. With STP, Weiland seems to be a better fit, leading a band that he helped create as opposed to just being part of a supergroup.
If further proof was needed that Weiland is in the right place, it was given Sunday night during Stone Temple Pilots’ concert at the Chevrolet Theatre in Wallingford. STP thrilled the full house with a two-hour show loaded with the group’s classic grunge-rock hits.
And Weiland looked and sounded great. He started out in a light three-piece suit with a dark red fedora, but by the end he was his usual shirtless self. To this casual observer, he seems to be in better health than when he was with Velvet Revolver. At VR’s concert at the Arena at Harbor Yard in Bridgeport in May of 2005, a shirtless Weiland brought about a gasp at his emaciated physique.
Sunday night’s concert started off with “Big Empty,” which set the tone for the entire evening. STP’s rhythm section of bassist-singer Robert DeLeo and drummer Eric Kretz put down a thunderous beat which guitar Dean DeLeo fleshed out with blazing electric guitar.
STP kept the hits coming with “Wicked Garden” and “Big Bang Baby,” all the while the band members seemed to be enjoying the heck out of being back together and breathing life into the old songs. Weiland even commented on how happy he was to be back in familiar surroundings.
“It’s nice to see you all smiling because we’re all smiling,” he told the crowd. “It’s been a while since I’ve smiled consistently on stage.”
There were a few lulls in the otherwise high-energy concert, two of which had to do with attaching Weiland’s battery pack to his pants. The other was even more unexpected as nature called Weiland near the end of the show. Robert DeLeo announced that the singer had eaten some bad food and would be right back.
At the height of Weiland’s drug woes, this would have caused a ripple of doubt throughout the crowd. After watching and hearing the 2008 version of Weiland for 90 minutes or so at that point, it was pretty easy to believe it was what they said it was.
Sure enough, the singer quickly returned to the stage and led an electrifying version of “Sex Type Thing,” Stone Temple Pilot’s breakthrough single.
The set list*
Big Empty/Wicked Garden/Big Bang Baby/Silvergun Superman/Vasoline/Lounge Fly/Lady Picture Show/Sour Girl/Creep/Crackerman/Plush/Interstate Love Song/Too Cool Queenie/Coma/Down/All in the Suit That You Wear/Sex Type Thing/Sin
Encore: Dead and Bloated/Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart
*-with an assist from a forum at www.atlanticrecords.com.
Posted by Sean on 2:08 AM | Comments (0)
May 23, 2008
We got The Beat
I have had the pleasure of attending several concerts at the Fairfield Theatre Company, which is good as it gets for live music venues in the region. But I have never seen as much life pumped into the building as Thursday night’s show by The English Beat.
The sold-out show even had people waiting outside, looking for scalpers that weren’t there. I had never seen that before at FTC.
So, the seats were full, the standing-room-only section was full and The English Beat was on stage, working up a sweat playing its high-energy ska music. It was only natural that the crowd couldn’t sit and watch this concert as it would any other show.
Before long, almost everybody was on their feet, bopping to The Beat, and the area in front of the stage was taken over by fans who needed the extra room to dance the night away.
The English Beat, which is basically founding member Dave Wakeling and a group of incredible musicians, sounded fantastic. I have a greatest-hits record of the band and it doesn’t come close to capturing how much fun this band is to watch on stage.
The group’s hit songs — most notably “Save it for Later” and “Mirror in the Bathroom” — were each injected with new life. The tune “Can’t Get Used to Losing You,” on record a bit of a bore, was actually a highlight in the concert.
As if there wasn’t enough excitement attached to this show, The English Beat had a special guest in its band — make that a Specials guest.
Lynval Golding of The Specials, a singer and rhythm guitarist, took the lead on a few songs from his band. In fact, in a bit of a strange move, the show started with The Specials’ “A Message to You, Rudy.”
Reportedly, The Specials will reunite for tour later this year. Let’s hope the powers that be over at FTC can snag the band for a show there and try to recapture some of Thursday night’s magic.
Posted by Sean on 6:53 PM | Comments (0)
May 6, 2008
Bryan Adams at Toad's Place
I’m old enough to remember when Bryan Adams was just starting to make a name for himself in the United States and watched as he landed hit after hit on the Top 40 charts with the videos going into heavy rotation on MTV. (Yes, I’m also old enough to remember when MTV played videos.)
Eventually, I couldn’t care less about what Adams was doing, as it seemed his songs were almost too successful, too omnipresent on radio and TV. To make matters worse, he had a huge hit with the sappy “(Everything I Do) I Do it For You” from a lame Kevin Costner movie.
It certainly didn’t help that every song I heard from him after that smash tried to replicate that formula and even sappier songs were forthcoming. I was officially done with Mr. Adams.
Whatever CDs I had by him were eventually traded in and, aside from seeing him in concert at the Warner Theater in Torrington a few years ago, I had no knowledge of anything he was doing musically.
Until Monday night, that is. Adams was at Toad’s Place in New Haven to do an acoustic solo show with tickets only available through WTIC-FM 96.5. Kim from Adams’ public relations agency offered me a pair of tickets, so I figured, why not?
If the show turned out to be a stinker, at least I could get a couple of slices of Yorkside Pizza while I was in the area. Anyway, what else was there to do on a Monday night?
Surprisingly, everything went well. Adams was engaging with the 450 or so fans in attendance and he sounded, well, like Bryan Adams. I actually could listen to his older hits with fresh ears, to hear the songs as he initially envisioned, not as these catchy monsters that soon assaulted my radio and TV.
The 90-minute set was loaded with his hits, some of which I had blocked out of my brain. Hearing these stripped-down versions brought me back to why I liked his music in the first place: The man can write a catchy pop song.
Here are some of the songs from Monday night that you should remember: “Can’t Stop This Thing We Started,” “Cuts Like a Knife,” “Heaven,” “Run to You,” “Summer of ’69” and “Please Forgive Me.”
Adams is doing this tour ostensibly to showcase his new album, called “11,” which is coming out on May 13 exclusively through Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. The crowd was polite during his new material, but between songs quickly started yelling out requests for his classics.
Though it was a solo performance, walking into Toad’s and seeing a drum kit on stage, I had a feeling that Adams’ longtime drummer, New Haven native Mickey Curry, would take part at some point of the show.
Curry, who played Toad’s many times in the ’70s with The Scratch Band, eventually joined Adams for four or five songs near the end of the show, playing the first drum set he ever owned. It was nice to see the two old friends enjoying each other’s company and, as far as the show, Curry’s drumming did help to mix things up.
For as entertaining as it was to hear Adams with just his acoustic guitar and occasional harmonica, every now and then, ‘Kids Wanna Rock.’ Even us older ones.
Posted by Sean on 8:02 PM | Comments (0)
May 5, 2008
Three Dog Night at The Klein
I checked out the Three Dog Night concert at The Klein in Bridgeport Friday night and I must say that I walked away sort of impressed.
When I interviewed singer Danny Hutton for the feature that ran in the Post Thursday, he mentioned a few times that the band sounds like it did on the records. He was right.
Though I’m not a big fan of Three Dog Night — I don’t own a single album by the band — I could appreciate all of the hit songs I knew from listening to AM radio growing up. Hutton and fellow singer Cory Wells both did fine work bringing these classics to life on The Klein’s stage.
In the phone interview, Hutton alerted me to a “special” thing that would happen three-quarters of the way through the concert and I’ll assume he was talking about what was the show’s obvious low point.
Wells, in the middle of “Mama Told Me (No to Come),” started talking about how some people said that it was kind of like the first rap song (it’s not). Wells then proceeded to don some bling, sunglasses and a baseball cap and launched into an updated version of the song done as a rap. I actually felt embarrassed for him. It was that bad.
But the show got back on the rails after that and finished with a rousing encore of “Joy to the World.” It was a fitting end to a rather joyful experience, especially for the longtime fans of the band in the crowd of 800 or so at The Klein.
Posted by Sean on 5:54 PM | Comments (0)
