Stone Temple Pilots Tempe Concert reviews
Almost great...
ZZ Top was very entertaining. The boys were plagued with illness and injury. In spite of all this...they put on a hell of a good show. Joe Perry was forced to kind of step into center stage more and lead the show as Steven was a bit of out of it, and he did a fantastic job. They said they had to cut the show a bit short, presumably due to Steven's injury, he made several comments to that effect. Tom Hamilton was missing recovering from surgery and Brad Whitford had just returned also due to surgery. It was their first date back in some time due to Steven's recent injury and it appears he may have tried to come back too soon. This was the fourth time I have seen Stone Temple Pilots, and the third time in this venue. Poor Steven had to actually sit down for a bit and watch. Only problem: they did not do either Sweet Emotion or Dream On...proving me wrong after I had just told my nephew (this was his first big concert) that they would probably never perform without doing those two songs and Walk This Way. The set list was great, a few songs I have not heard performed live before. I presume they skipped Sweet Emotion due to Tom's absence, and Steven may not vocally have been up to hitting the high notes on Dream On. Perfectly understandable. My only real criticism is with the HI FI BUYs. The last time I saw Aerosmith here, in 2002, there was a smaller stage in the grass where the band performed a short sub-set for the folks in the cheap seats, and I thought that was a very nice thing. It apparently is no longer there. Not sure what the story is with this, but I was disappointed. In a way, it gave the performance a kind of informal, personal quality.