Courtesy of Scott Weiland's Website
The soundtrack to my last couple of months has consisted of mostly mellow/indie artists like Angus and Julia Stone, but when I got the call to cover Scott Weiland, I flipped back into the days of riding my bike to Virgin Records when grunge rock was at its prime. I was too young to know what any of the songs meant but loved them all the same and was always adding to my collection of albums. Needless to say, along with Nirvana and Pearl Jam, I was and still am a big Stone Temple Pilots fan (and Velvet Revolver fan for that matter), so I was pretty pumped to see Weiland live.
I arrived at the Observatory around 9—when the show was supposed to start—and to my horror there was a huge Christmas tree on stage. I mean, I knew he released a holiday album this year, The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, and I had prepared myself for a couple holiday songs, but not an entire Christmas show.
Weiland is notorious for his ever-changing looks and persona, but when he finally came out on stage at 10:40, he revealed an alter ego that no one was expecting. As I watched the once bad-boy rocker glide across the stage, crooning, ‘Walking in a Winter Wonderland,’ in a white blazer and slicked back hair, I couldn’t help but think that my eyes were in fact witnessing a Christmas miracle.
The audience was equally shocked. I talked to a number of people who had come to see the Weiland they remembered—a guy whose personal exploits have practically gotten as much attention as his music. One woman, who was exceptionally upset because she got a babysitter for the night so her and her girlfriend could come and “rock out,” vented to me, “watching him sing these songs is almost sacrilegious, I feel like I’m at a comedy show and that isn’t what I paid for.”
In terms of the album itself, I’m not going to completely knock it. There are some decent songs and even moments where Weiland channels some Christmas singing legends like Nat King Cole or even Perry Como, but at the end of the day, music fans tend to consider recording a Christmas CD as the ultimate sell-out (cough, Bob Dylan, cough). I’m sure there are people out there who love Scott Weiland enough to see him at any price, but I was not one of them nor was the majority of the crowd at the Galaxy that night. Bottom line, his managers should have advertised it as a Christmas show so ticket purchasers knew what they were paying for, because I don’t think anyone at that show was leaving early because they had to get their hands on a copy of The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.
Unfortunately for me, I think I’m going to have to take one of my favorite running songs, “Slither,” off my workout playlist because I’ll never be able to listen to that song without laughing again. Here’s a video to reminisce on the glory years…
