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Local H: Overall, okay, but "Bound for the Floor" is still the only catchy song they've ever made and the only one that woke up the audience.
Earshot: The best Tool tribute band I've ever heard. Oh, wait a minute -- they're not a tribute band, just a rip-off band. Oh, who cares, "Get Away" is still better than any Tool song from their last album. Except when played live -- this band absolutely, positively SUCKS live -- they were by far the worst band there. You can't even hear a word the lead singer says, because he mumbles so low. Whatever.
Gravity Kills: Probably the third best (and most popular) industrial band ever… but considered a second tier act by the music festival, so they only got 30 minutes on stage. Damn shame -- I liked the six or seven songs they got to play (including radio hit "Guilty"). My favorite GK song was skipped, of course -- apparently I'm the only one who thought "Down" was killer. One thing about them live is that I was always confused as to whether they were actually performing live or using pre-recorded music, because the bass player kept moving to the keyboards, yet I kept hearing bass! And the lead singer seemed to be his own backup singer quite often…
Soil: I went to my car while they were playing, though I did hear "Halo" from the parking lot -- sounds exactly like it sounds on the radio, but I have no idea what they look or act like on stage.
Adema: Everybody always claims that they sound like a Korn rip-off (there are FAR too many of those now), while I keep saying they sound like a Marilyn Manson rip-off (which is kind of cool, because we don't have very many of those). Now I realize that, yes, they ARE a Korn rip-off -- except for the two songs the radio stations have been playing, which are Marilyn Manson rip-offs. In any case, they aren't all that good musically, and on stage, they look like just about any other band rather than some frightening Korn or Marilyn wannabe, so they're sorta… boring…
Sevendust: 50,000 people, 10 of them black, one of them me, one of them Sevendust's lead singer. Sevendust is not one of my favorite bands, but I love "Waffle" (which they played, of course) and I don't turn any of their other songs off when they come on the radio. Good, crowd- pleasing performance, though.
Puddle of Mud: So… I always knew "Drift & Die" sounded like a Creed rip-off (yup, we've gotten to the point where a rip-off like Creed has rip-offs), and "Control" sounds waaaaaay too gimmicky for its own good. So imagine my surprise when everything else from Puddle of Mud sounds like a Nirvana rip-off. A half-decent rip-off, but one in any case. The obvious exception to all of these rules is "Blurry," the best "power rock ballad" I've heard in a long time and most likely the # 1 alt rock song of 2002 unless something else amazing comes along. That was the only song I sung along with the first night of the festival (as did the ENTIRE audience) -- just too damn catchy and memorable not to, but I just keep waiting to get sick of it (doesn't it come on every other minute on some station?). Not quite yet.
Rob Zombie: Five minutes into his wild set, he yells, "It's time to get naked" -- and every woman in the first five or ten rows obliged. A hell of show from any viewpoint, and he even showed about ten minutes worth of clips from "House of a 1000 Corpses," which he swears is coming out this Halloween. Those skeletons dancing in the background gave me the willies. He played all of his best Rob Zombie and White Zombie songs, at least the ones I know (like "Thunderkiss 65," "More Human...", "Living Dead Girl"), plus a couple of new ones (including from the movie's soundtrack). Look out for his pyro machine! I felt it from 150 rows back!
Kid Rock: And the women stayed nekkid for his show -- lemme tell you, it was an extremely dangerous idea having these two guys back-to-back. The mosh pit was freakin' deadly. I'm no real Kid Rock fan, but I was rather disappointed that he didn't start off the show with his KNOWN songs -- instead he did some new songs and some covers (like Led Zep's "Rock and Roll"). I left midway through because I wanted to beat traffic, so maybe he played his hits later. The best thing he did was bring out a stage that was higher than the festival-provided stage by about a hundred feet and FLEW on top of it, and did a couple of songs up there so even us guys out in the sticks (150 rows back) could see him. That was cool.
(Day 2)
Neurotica: Basically, they just seemed there to promote their new album (and the WWF for some reason) but even so, who the hell would have thought that they actually wouldn't play their only radio hit, "Down," which was one of my favorite songs of 1998? And again, the highlight of their appearance was the lead singer's dissing of the media, particularly MTV, for ignoring Layne's death.
Kevin Martin (of Candlexbox): By far the most disappointing show of the event -- the man definitely had an agenda, which was to promote his new band and their first album… which won't even be released until July or August. And he chose to play almost nothing but songs from that album, songs that nobody had ever heard. The two Candlebox songs he did play ("You" and the Layne Staley tribute version of "Far Behind") got huge rounds of applause… the rest of his peculiar mix of grunge, blues and jazz just had the audience looking puzzled at him, and one guy through a bottle at him, which caused him to stop the concert for a few minutes while he yelled at the guy ("GO! If you don't like it, you can just go -- get out of here!"). He had an hour -- a smart man would have at least played half Candlebox songs. Either way, I knew he wouldn't play my favorite Candlebox song "No Sense" (I've never heard a single radio station or MTV play it -- too jazzy for them), but I'm sorta surprised he ignored "Cover Me," my second favorite Candlebox song.
STONE TEMPLE PILOTS: The classiest, coolest band in the land. They started playing while the radio DJs were still attempting to introduce them. The only fancy thing they had on the set was a banner that said "Stone Temple Pilots." Their tribute to Layne Staley was by far the most subtle of the dozens I heard -- they opened with a cover of Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and Scott Weiland says at the end, "You know what that's all about" and moves right into "Crackerman." They made no attempts to incite the crowd whatsoever other than directly through their music, which was quite enough. Everybody, me included, sang along with almost every song. Heck, they made it easy for us: STP has released 5 albums, each slightly less popular than the first… and STP, the only band there with no agenda whatsoever, loaded their performance with songs from the earlier albums. In fact, they didn't even play any songs at all from their last album! And only "Down" from "4" (I was a bit surprised and disappointed that they left off "Sour Girl," my second favorite STP song and their most popular tune since 1994, but then again, the whole concert seemed to reflect the taste of the radio station that sponsored the event, so I wonder if STP didn't just ask them, "Hey, what do you want us to play? It's YOUR concert!" and the station told them. And this station played "Sour Girl" about 3 times in 2001 and never again. Despite the fact that it hit #1 on the national alternative charts.) STP, in fact, are so cool that they mocked all of the agenda-oriented bands that played before them: before they kick into about song # 7, Weiland says "This is a new song. It's called 'demo.'" Then they immediately proceed to play "Plush," which is, of course, their #1 song of all time and a decade old! They played every "Core" song except "Where the River Songs," and my 3rd favorite STP song "Piece of Pie," and the best songs from other albums like "Vasoline" and "Big Empty" and "Big Bang Baby" (though I could have done without "Interstate Love Song" -- never liked that one). And of course they finished the concert off with their first big hit and my personal favorite (as well as the name of one of my former handles), "Sex Type Thing." Just pure workmanship from beginning to end -- the closest they came to being outlandish was that Village People-reject cop cap Weiland wore. No unnecessary banter, no jumping off the stage to engage in crowd surfing, nothing. Just all of the best STP songs (except "Sour Girl") played to perfection. And, yeah, unlike with Zombie and Kid, I made sure I was in the first ten-fifteen rows of this one. Heck, I'll probably never get to see them again - - the reason I've never seen them before is because Weiland's got that Kurt Cobain/Layne Staley syndrome and has to go into rehab every time they put together a tour. I doubt very seriously that the death of his friend is going to shock him clean...
This was probably the best music festival I've been to since Lollapalooza 1993; imagine how damn good it would have been if Jerry Cantrell had been able to make it AND had spent the entire time playing AIC songs as he indicated he would immediately after the discovery of Layne's body. Oh, well...
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