Download Review: Stone Temple Pilots

Deputy Editor Caren Gibson checks out the Stone Temple Pilots as the downpour continued at Download.

It was a massive risk for Andy Copping to close main stage Download 2010 with two bands currently featuring the most unpredictable frontmen in rock, and for a while we begin to wonder if Stone Temple Pilots singer Scott Weiland has shown up at all as Motorhead overrun and rumours fly around the press area that Aerosmith will be taking the stage early. We’re not sure we’re relieved fears are ufounded or quietly cursing because the rain hasn’t stopped yet…

There’s something about the romanticism of being a wasted genius that propels bands from being mere musicians into ‘legend’s. Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Bon Scott, Kurt Cobain… Maybe it’s only if you die young, before you’ve had a chance to piss on your own legacy. Perhaps after his stint in Velvet Revolver, in his head he thinks legend is a mantle he’s aleready earned. But what we can see is a barely functioning fuck up.

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At first it sounds like his voice is a little rough in places, then you think perhaps he just can’t sing anymore. Then as the first attempt at crowd interaction passes you realise Scott Weiland is off his tits! Look into his eyes on the big screen and he’s barely even there. And for a while it’s hilarious! As he slurs his way through Wicked Garden, drawls through Crackerman and stumbles through Interstate Love Song it’s actually funny – like watching the many booze casualties over the weekend who have lost the ability to stand up try to stand up and pretend they’re coherent. But as Scott fluffs the beginning of Plush it starts to get embarrassing. Cringeworthy, even.

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You’ve gotta feel for the rest of the band. With a brand new album out they clearly want to make this reunion work and they’re not doing anything wrong. Weiland was once a bold, charismatic, flamboyant and most importantly engaging frontman. As Pilots’ set progresses it looks more like a slow motion train wreck happening in front of us, Weiland stumbling and staggering around with the exaggerated movements and vacant gaze of someone who’s barely with us. The more he talks the less sense he makes and the more his band mates look as though they’d prefer to be anywhere but here. Or maybe it’s just us. But no, a quick scan of the crowd confirms most are anywhere but here. A spectacular disaster. Still, positives in everything, new album aside, the tunes are still cracking.
Caren Gibson

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