Sorry that the posts have been quite spacious, I have been pretty busy with school, practice, learning tunes, all that great stuff!
Well, last night I went to a concert I have been waiting for for almost 8 years. When word of the Creed reunion reached me, I was generally excited and optimistic about the situation. I have some very distinct memories involving their songs, and I fell in love with one of their songs, One Last Breath, during some strange times in my life in middle school, and since it has been a mainstay of my iTunes library. Also I gotta say their other hits generally are great tunes that I can enjoy singing along too, however horrible it may sound.
I was reluctant to buy a ticket until a few weeks ago, due to the fact I figured the cheapest ticket would be somewhere around $50. I managed to catch a ticket for about $20, right near the the rear of the main level.
So yesterday I hopped on the 94 bus, and made my way to Minneapolis, grabbed some Chipotle, and headed on down to the Target Center, which I expected to be swamped with teens, and people around my age. When I got there I was surprised to find that there was a fairly large mix of individuals around 30-40, people wearing a lot of old Creed shirts from tours from the early 2000s. So I get to my seat very early, just to hang out and soak it all in, as I am known to do. I left to grab a quick drink, when I realized all of the TVs in the halls had the Twins game on, bottom of the 9th. So I stood amongst the crowds, cheered on my Twinks, and managed to only catch a glimpse of the first opener, Like A Storm. When they came onstage, I went in quickly, and was driven out quickly. The basic vibe I got off of them was something like Fall Out Boy meets Trivium with really bad singing. It was not a good mixture, so I quickly got back to my game. It was from that post that I heard an abomination of sound waves, a horribly shoddy cover of Alice in Chains' Man in the Box. I just about did a kamikaze dive to the soundboard so no one else would lose their mind. Nothing like the Twins to distract you from an abomination...
The Twins tie the game up, go to the 11th, and I go to my seat just as Staind takes the stage. At this point I realize that a large part of the crowd is here solely for Staind, but I figure that Creed's fans are just waiting to show up till just before they take the stage. I also begin to notice how great the lighting rig for this tour looks. Everything is extremely well calibrated, and looks great. I am a mainstream Staind fan, I have always liked their tunes, and can connect somewhat with some lyrics contained within. I was extremely surprised by how great Staind sounded through the house (and very happy at this point about Target Center's 1 million dollar sound upgrading.) I found new song that I enjoyed and also connected with, so I will definitely be checking them out again sometime in the near future.
At this point I go back out to find a stunning victory by my twins (go twins,) and head back. After waiting around, next to some 30 year old man wearing a Call of Duty shirt, the lights hit. typical tension builds, and the band comes onstage and rips into a song from their new "money maker" Full Circle. At this point I notice that there is an absolutely stunning amount of empty seats, even the sections next to the stage have wide open gaps in them.
The beginning of the show, as could be expected is all new stuff that neither I, or most people there care about. I am here for the tunes everyone knows, and can sing along with. At this point it becomes painfully clear that the successful reunions of the past few years are what this is supposed to be like. And it failed miserably. The band sounded solid, but Scott Stapp, known to have had substance problems, (not anymore) cannot even hold a note. Literally. Every not fell flat, and none reached their desired location. To me Scott Stapp, who has always been notorious as a not-so-solid singer should just hang it up, or actually try for once. When we get to the good tunes that I know, they end up falling flat on their faces, Stapp seeming uninspired, and almost like he just isn't trying.
This blatant money-grab reunion seems to be deflating before it's even finished, as I found out this morning that the crowd was somewhere around a measly 4,000 attendees, most likely the lowest ever seen at the Target Center. Not a single upper level seat was sold.
In the end, some of my favorite songs were just butchered, I felt a huge amount of un-inspiration in the new material, save for Mark Tremonti and the rest of the rhythm section, who at this point should just stick with the much better Alter Bridge. If this tour somehow survives and goes anywhere else, save us all the pain and drop the opener, and make it a Staind concert.
