August 12, 2000
Hey all, it's De, once again, here to tell you about another concert I recently saw: Creed. Now you can't miss these guys especially if you do as much driving as I do, because they are very much a radio band. I usually hear them 3-4 times a day on the radio. Anyway, Creed stopped by on Saturday, August 12th, to play at Alpine Valley.
First off, Alpine Valley should be called Alpine Big-Hole-In-The-Ground. Alpine Valley did not impress me and watching a concert ontop of a grassy hill wasn't my idea of fun. (If I was a hippie I suppose it would be, but too bad I'm not one of those "yay nature" people.) There was an abundance of people that were mad-drunk way before the show even started and it threw me a curve ball but Creed are often classified under "Southern Rockers" and with that entails the tattooed women and leather-wearing drunk men.
So then, American Pearl and 3 Doors Down opened for Creed. We missed most of American Pearl because parking was a "bitch" (aka lets park on this big open lawn and then walk on gravel to the big hill where you'll see the concert). 3 Doors Down, as much as I'm sick of "Kryptonite" -- their big hit -- they put on a good show. I wish I could tell you more about their stage presence but I was so far away I could barely even see the band. Oh yes, and the monitors, well those didn't help much either (even when they were turned on during Creed).
Creed finally came on to a crowd of about 30,000 people and they surprised me by having this blood red backdrop behind them and fire, etc. during the show. It casted out a real dark evil aura but I guess it was all part of rock n roll right? Mark Tremonti, the guitarist, head-banged and I noticed he changed some of his more complex parts to just be open chords to ease his playing for the crowd. Scott Stapp, the singer, who has been rumored to be a primadonna, took everything very seriously and put all his emotion into the songs. I was not surprised. (I hate to leave out the drummer, Scott Phillips, but I couldn't see much of him). At the time of my concert, their former bassist Brian Marshall, had just left them on personal and professional differences and it seemed the replacement bassist was still getting into the groove of things -- so to speak.
They touched on all their big hits, and they even played some real emotional songs like "Beautiful" and "Wash Away Those Years" -- the latter of the two Scott Stapp commented that it is very hard to sing the song due to it's personal nature and during one part I noticed he cut out and didn't sing a line. They touched on two more aggressive songs, "What's This Life For" and "What If" before encore and it was a complete 180 when they came out for encore and ended on two positive songs "Higher" and "One." Ending with white pirotechnics let you leave the concert with a smile until you wandered through the gravel to find your car and walked past people peeing in beer bottles. Ahh... Don't you love rock n roll? I sure do...
Till the next concert.
Diane
Jakob's Music Site | RoadTrips w/De
