Pearl Jam and Stone Temple Pilots

Zod

I love STP.  Core is decent, but the run from Purple to No. 4 is amazing.  Purple is my favourite STP album.

I was lucky enough to see STP three times.   Scott was already having problems in the late 90s.   We wanted to see them in '96 but I think the blizzard of '96 resulted in the show getting cancelled.   When they came back for the No. 4 tour the closest show was in Portland, OR.   Somehow they got added onto a metal festival called Tattoo the Earth.  We decided to go.  A few months later a Vancouver show got added the night before the Portland show.   It was a headlining show in a theatre so we opted to buy tickets for that too.  Went to the Vancouver show, then drove through the night to get to Portland for Tattoo the Earth.   Both shows were amazing.   I'm very glad we went to both.  Not sure how we did stuff like that with little to no sleep back then.   Go to work, travel to vancovuer for a concert, pull an all nighter to get to portland, sleep a few hours, then watch an entire day of metal capped off my STP.. then drive back.. lol.

Then around 2009 they played here in Victoria when I was coming back home for a visit.   I thought it was pretty cool they were playing on my Island.  Not that many bands play here.   Unfortunately that show wasn't that great.   The crowd nor the band seemed that into it.  

I am happy I got to see them twice at the top of their game.  

I seem to struggle with replacement singers.  I didn't really like the first new album with the new guy, but I've listened to the new acoustic album a bit.  Not sure I'd go out of my way to see them with the new singer.  I know I skipped the Commodore show in Vancouver that was supposed to be this year until it got cancelled.   I suppose i'm the same way with AIC.   I like seeing them live.   I saw William Duvall do vocals for a number of Jerry Cantrell solo shows before they reformed AIC.   Still... the new albums... I've never really grown attached to them like I did the older stuff.  We did make effort to go once when they first reformed.   The 2nd time they were opening for GNR in Seattle, so it was a sweet bonus. 

I do believe band members that aren't the vocalist do deserve a chance to keep making a living.  It's so hard to make it in entertainment.   You get that one break, create that one band, and then you lose your singer.   I think it's ok to try to keep using the name.   STP tried twice to start new bands with different singers under different names and got no traction.   It reminds me that there are other members that helps establish the band name, and deserve to make a living on their work.  Even if i don't feel like going, they deserve to make a living

Gern Blansten

JimFletcherPearlJam said:

I guess maybe the most likely scenario would be Alice in Chains opening for Pearl Jam, since the members of those two bands are friends, and they all live in the Seattle area.  A guy can dream -- right?

AIC opened for GNR a few years ago in Chicago.  We had bought tix a few months before and I don't think AIC was announced as the opener at that point.

We got to Chicago, checked into the hotel and went to a bar.  I got to wondering who was opening and looked it up....I about shit when I saw it was AIC.  Great concert.

PSUS2H

One of the few bands that works with a new singer out of this era is AIC, and it's largely (IMO) the fact that Jerry sings so much on the albums, so it didnt feel like a full replacement.  I always felt in a way that Jerry was more of the front man than Layne, maybe that was my teenage self seeing Jerry playing guitar and singing, so I idolized that a bit as a young guitarist.

Gern Blansten

PSUS2H said:

One of the few bands that works with a new singer out of this era is AIC, and it's largely (IMO) the fact that Jerry sings so much on the albums, so it didnt feel like a full replacement.  I always felt in a way that Jerry was more of the front man than Layne, maybe that was my teenage self seeing Jerry playing guitar and singing, so I idolized that a bit as a young guitarist.

Agreed....Jerry sang so much it is easier to not miss Layne's voice.  

PSUS2H

Dont get me wrong, I'll go see STP with Jeff, but AIC was a lot easier to get on board with.  Layne is missed a lot, but Jerry is really keeping AIC going well. 

JimFletcherPearlJam

I have to agree that Alice in Chains sans Layne is easier to take than Stone Temple Pilots without Weiland. Cantrell singing likely has quite a bit to do with it, along with the passing of 18 years since Layne's death.

JimFletcherPearlJam

I really wish the other STP band members had never kicked Weiland out of the band. I mean, STP was 50 percent Weiland, 20 percent Dean, 20 percent Robert, and 10 percent Eric Kretz. Even if Weiland was consistently in and out of drug rehab, they could've made a new album every five years from the early 2000s to whenever. 

JimFletcherPearlJam

I must say though, STP sounded damn good in 2018 when I saw them with Jeff Gutt. Just not the same without Weiland staring back at the crowd. 

JimFletcherPearlJam

When I watch past interviews with STP, Weiland does nearly all the talking for the band. Heck, I'm not sure if Eric Kretz even utters a syllable. 

JimFletcherPearlJam

I recently ordered a simply badass STP Core skateboard deck from officialbandshirts.com. Heck, it's so cool that I also got one for my brother. Maybe one of you will be interested as well. Check it out! 

Get_Right

Dean DeLeo is terribly underrated and has always been lost in Scott's shadow. Purple is one of my all time favs and I was lucky enough to seem them a few times before they broke up. Shame to see them playing small theaters on a triple bill.

JimFletcherPearlJam

Yeah, I saw STP in 1997, 1999, 2018, and 2022. The only time they played longer than 90 minutes was 1997. The other three were triple-bill shows as you mentioned. I'd practically kill to see them play for more than two hours again. I also think Purple is a masterpiece. I'd say Core and Tiny Music are tied for second after that. Of course, I also like No. 4 and even Shangri-La Dee Da. Dean seems particularly cool. I think I'd really enjoy hanging out with that dude. 

Foriginal Sin

Is it me or has Creed sold way more records than Pearl Jam? And if so, fucking how?

JimFletcherPearlJam

No buddy, Pearl Jam is nearing 100 million in album sales worldwide. Creed has yet to reach 60 million. 

Foriginal Sin

JimFletcherPearlJam said:

No buddy, Pearl Jam is nearing 100 million in album sales worldwide. Creed has yet to reach 60 million. 

2 albums vs 10 albums? Yeah they won, way less work to make the same money

apirk72

jdasilvaf said:

I was never a fan of the second gen "grunge" bands like STP, Bush, Candlebox, etc. The music was weak, derivative and just lacked something... sincerity maybe. I thought of them as the boy band equivalent/response from the major labels to what they saw as new cash-cow.

People change and grow up, I get that,  but I'd have a lot more respect for STP if they hadn't tried so hard to pretend to have some kind of underground cred which they clearly did not have.

Pretty much agree with all of this, it at least I feel the same way.  It always seemed like the first two albums they were trying to be someone else and then they were able to make the album they always wanted to in Tiny music.  It was like when grunge died they could be themselves again.  To me Bush was pretty much the equivalent to a boy band.  Who knows if I was like 3-5 years younger I might feel differently.

hrd2imgn

Saw Bush with No Doubt opening way back.... I thought they were great live, just very vanilla.  I don't think any band like them, STP, LIVE (another amazing live show) etc should be maligned as grunge hacks or wannabees as they all paid their dues.  Why is being successful during the grunge era a curse and negative for the non seattle core?  With that mindset you could argue PJ werea  post grunge core, since MLB was really the band it began with and Ed was Chilli Pepper wanna bee in Bad Radio.

  Pick a POV and we can label people  amd bands all day.  Picasso once saud label are for bottles if wine....fuck if you like whomever awesome, if not awesome.  Why is there a need to defend some scared "grunge" idea in terms if purity?  I like old and new Metallica. Holy shit I should kick my own posuer ass. Ha ha.  Lets just end the grunge handwringing.  

I like bush

JimFletcherPearlJam

Foriginal Sin, I think that Creed actually has 4 studio albums while PJ has 11. I get your point though. It's cool if you like Creed better. I mean, the world would be pretty boring if everybody liked exactly the same stuff. 

JimFletcherPearlJam

As for STP, their first album was released only 13 months after PJ's Ten, which isn't really much of a difference. 

JimFletcherPearlJam

Well, I should be able to see STP play for two hours again at the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas on November 19th, because they're the only act performing that night (as opposed to a triple bill). The show's actually free too! I've never been to a free street concert, so this is going to be cool as heck for my wife and I. I guess it's time to cash in those rewards points with Southwest Airlines and stay at the Golden Nugget! Is anybody else ready to join us?