An hour after his scheduled start time, Scott Weiland tookthe stage not to a taut rock riff or a triumphant Stone Temple Pilots hit but…a 20-minute blues jam. With reggae undertones. On which he played Theremin.With his back to the crowd.
It was a horrid beginning to a performance that would continue to find bizarrenew ways to disappoint.
The show was damned from the start. Weiland’s finicky, hard-rock lounge singershtick only works when he’s supported by a really great hard-rock band, but forthis tour he assembled a group of players unfit to play the smallest
Weiland’s performance was more proficient but no lessbizarre than Grean’s. When he wasn’t emitting shrill, Perry Farrell-ish cries,he was shoehorning his David Bowie impression into songs where it didn’tbelonglike a tragic cover of “Reel Around the Fountain.” Pinned betweenWeiland’s groan and Grean’s overzealous Eddie Van Halen licks, that belovedSmiths songs squealed like a pained pig, and most of the set was subjected tothat same Deliverance treatment, eventhe few Stone Temple Pilots songs Weiland brusquely tossed the dour crowd.There were to be no highlights at this ruinous performance. If the bandhappened to play a song the audience wanted to hear, it was only to mangle it.
