Event Black Rebel Motorcycle Club • Stone Temple Pilots • Wolfmother
City San Diego
State California
Venue Qualcomm Stadium
Date July 27, 2008
Stone Temple Pilots, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Wolfmother at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium for a show in the Concert on the Green series. An interesting trifecta on a Sunday eve, to be sure, but there are certainly worse ways for me to spend my time and money.
Perhaps we could chalk up my urge to see this show on a few particular factors like:
• The reunion craze continues and continues to wax us nostalgic while sucking our wallets dry yet the aftertaste is not so bitter because we choose to believe in the glory of what once was and could possibly be again
• According to The Bangles, Sundays are fun days and nothing’s more fun for me than live music. Whoo hoo!
• Any excuse to get my ass to see BRMC perform
I’m one of those who missed Stone Temple Pilots first time around and I did so because my life and musical head were very much elsewhere. Live shows didn’t have much of a place in my world (if you can believe such a thing) and, musically, Stone Temple Pilots were just outside of my perimeter. I heard them, enjoyed them enough not to change the station when they came on and could appreciate the rock. By the time I started to “feel” them…well, by then Mr. Weiland and his demons were bigger than a band could stand. So away went STP into the sunset and away went Weiland in and out of jail and rehab. And in and out of Velvet Revolver (which was my excuse to see Slash and Duff rock out and to acquire what I consider the best cell phone screensaver EVER) while Rob DeLeo futzed around with Army of Anyone.
With its abrupt dissolution, the air of unfinished business fueled this band’s reunion. Cool. Now maybe I’d finally get my “Sour Girl, “Plush”, “Lady Picture Show” and the most perfectly riffed “Interstate Love Song” on.
After a pleasant late lunch/early dinner at Las Olas, a festive Mexican restaurant in the swanky beach town of Carlsbad, my three friends and I hit the road and headed south into San Diego proper. With 3 bands on the bill obviously this show would start earlier than the average show: 7 PM. Why BRMC was first on the stage kind of eluded me; first obviously meant the shortest set of the eve and short it was. In fact, I’d go out on a limb and assert that it was probably the shortest set they’ve ever played in their career: 30 minutes even. They’ve played longer at the Hotel Café. But they made good use of their time running on fuzzed out groove and darkly rich electric distortion with “666 Conducer”, “Berlin”, “Ain’t No Easy Way”, “Weapon of Choice”, “Took Out A Loan”, “Whatever Happened To My Rock and Roll” and the most uber of love songs “Steal A Ride” (“the boy’s in a bag in the back of the city dump”)…every time I hear those words I want to weep. So tender and romantic….
Among the crowd, those people who knew and dug BRMC (like us) were so painfully obvious. I think that it was the pogoing, the clapping, the dancing, the singing every line of every song, the air drumming (which I’ve mastered thanks to my steering wheel), the air guitar and the shameless screams of approval. They were sprinkled liberally throughout the crowd but they were there as were the nods of approval from those taking the band in for the first time and who were suddenly particularly interested in knowing the name of the band in black onstage because they rocked. It’s always a good sign, if not a respectful one, when you spy the headliner (STP) standing just off stage grooving to their opening act. STP was grooving to BRMC, stage right. Wolfmother was grooving stage left.
Thirty minutes or 2 hours, BRMC puts out like they mean it every time and the song “Whatever Happened To My Rock and Roll” is a question effectively answered at every show: it’s right here in front of your face. In leather. Peter Hayes and Robert Been. Good times.
Next up: Wolfmother. With so many words on the tongue, the best I have to offer you is this: the big hair is still there and they continue to sound like a pale Zeppelin; easy to listen to and largely inoffensive yet I still cannot justify why this band won a Grammy. But then all I have to remember is the significance of the modern day Grammys. The double-neck guitar is cool to look at and all but if you’re going to strut, prance and preen with a double-neck guitar then use it to your advantage and play both necks. “The Joker and the Thief” and “Colassal” were as good as it got for me. No, “Woman” didn’t move me, especially since Stockdale’s upper register wasn’t available and he sounded like a wounded cat. After a while, the wailing took its toll on my mind and I was ready to move on. I wanted to see Wolfmother, I wanted to see how they and the album translated live and now that I have, we’re done.
The Main Event: the crowd had swelled considerably, one friend was behind me, the other two had moved to the rear and once the smoke machine started smoking and the lights dimmed I felt that familiar “GA push” of everyone behind you suddenly trying to get in front of you. Yeah, keep trying.
STP is STP. Their music more often than not is considered derivative, they’ve sometimes been mistaken for Nirvana and they could only hope to be Pearl Jam in their next lifetime. Their spin on a hard core four-man machine did not change my sonic world but they surely left their mark on the radio airwaves and hearts of younger guys and girls who thrashed through the late 90′s. In their prime they kept it pop-grunge electric and damned if they couldn’t write perfectly good hooks. That may be the sum total of their legacy but there are legacies that will fare far worse. Limp Bizkit, Goo Goo Dolls, anyone?
I’ll bet that a lot of people in the audience were like me and had never seen STP live. I’ll even bet that some in the audience were like me and just wanted to see if Weiland would even make through the show or resort to the mic stand lean throughout the eve or, even worse, a repeat of the now infamous performance at the PNC. Me and my morbid curiosity? Yes, but I also wanted my “Lounge Fly” and to witness something worth saying “I was there.” for.
The Weiland that took the stage was coherent, punchy, had his showman hat on (and a fuzzy knit one, too) and validated that skinny jeans really do have a place in this world and that place is apparently on Scott’s ass. And he seemed in a good place and genuinely pleased to be rocking a stage as STP.
Rob DeLeo’s got some serious jazz hands (no, not those jazz hands!). Not only does the guy look tight (possibly a better dressed bassman than Carlos D.) and have that very distinct hold on his instrument (go wherever you want with that), as bass players go, he’s very precise. Along side the dirty crunch of “Sex Type Thing”, the flavor of STP’s songs occasionally took a turn when came two extended jams that completely flipped the grunge and turned into jam/improv sessions that blew me away as Rob let the jazz roll from his fingers and Dean finessed the sexy out of his Gibson; then there was the little country diddy that would’ve made me want to square dance had I not been one of the many layers in a human sandwich.
Weiland and the band were solid and I was glad to see it. The last time I saw Weiland was in October with Velvet Revolver, a scant few days after his latest DUI arrest. That night I was just glad that he made it to the show. This eve I was glad to see him strut and prance his West Coast arrogance with that unmistakable Jagger-esque chicken-neck thing he does. He’s got some animal in him that comes out in the form of slinking and prowling around his turf, the stage. The only thing he didn’t do was open his fly and mark his territory… but then he’s probably been there, done that sometime circa 1999.
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