Written By Nathan Holt
Photo By Nathan Holt
This past week has been an odd one for singer Scott Weiland, mainly about his questionable removal as the singer of Stone Temple Pilots. However, this still is up in the air according to the frontman. He didn’t touch on the subject during his sold-out performance on the first date of his solo tour last night at The Machine Shop in Flint, Michigan. But he did bring a set packed full of Stone Temple Pilots and a few cover songs.
The local Flint band, Frequency 54, opened the show with a short thirty minute set of harder rock songs that got the crowd warmed up. They also seemed to have a great time on stage messing around with each other while they played. The band Miggs was up next with a slightly longer pop-rock set at forty-five minutes. They played songs such as “Suddenly Wonderful,” “Full of Doubt,” “Stars,” “Let The Games Begin” and a short snippet of Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust.” Speaking of covers, they also did a couple other snippets here and there along with a full cover of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by The Rolling Stones.
Scott Weiland and the Wildabouts took the stage slowly one at a time while performing a musical jam. Weiland emerged from the darkness wrapped in a heavy coat and scarf, and sported fingerless gloves and sunglasses. While singing some vocals, he carried around a coffee mug and cigarette in one hand while looking like he just walked in from a blizzard. He then proceeded to slowly take off the excess clothing during the jam, stopping at a simple white button-up shirt, pants and tie. The jam led to the Stone Temple Pilots song “Wicked Garden” followed by “Paralysis” and a Stone Temple Pilots song that hadn’t been played in many years, “Naked Sunday.”
“For first shows, you just have fun…so we’ll just play rock ‘n’ roll,” said Weiland. “We’re a rock and roll band.” And play rock and roll they did. Though Weiland seemed a little off key during some of the set, it was most noticeable during the next Stone Temple Pilots song “Creep” where he really seemed to get into it. After the cover of David Bowie’s “Jean Genie,” technical problems occurred. Since Weiland’s megaphone stopped working, he improvised by changing his voice for an alternative version of the popular Stone Temple Pilots song “Crackerman.”
Overall the Stone Temple Pilots set seemed a little choppy with some small issues, such as the band missing the bridge of the song “Kitchenware & Candybars.” After the crowd pointing it out, the band dove back into the bridge of the song just to make things right. This went into a cover of “Mountain Song” by Jane’s Addiction. Mixing in a cover of “Can’t Stand Me Now” by The Libertines, most of the other songs were the Stone Temple Pilots played were their own: “Big Empty,” “Still Remains,” “Vasoline” and “Interstate Love Song.” After leaving the stage, they came back on to perform an encore of “Roadhouse Blues” by the Doors and “Sex Type Thing” complete with the fixed megaphone.
Throughout the show the crowd danced and sang along the entire time. Some venues promote the show to be solely about the Stone Temple Pilots albums Core and Purple. Since over half the songs originate from those albums, they’re not far off. However, the show is more of a megamix of songs that Weiland has had a hand in. While it would have been nice to hear at least one Velvet Revolver song, the crowd was entertained with the setlist they were given.
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