Newspaper reviews from the St.Paul show tell it all. By the way, the 2nd review is from Jim Walsh of the St. Paul Pioneer Press who has written several wonderful articles about U2.
Creed plays to the faithful in sellout concert
Chris Riemenschneider
Star Tribune
Published Feb 17, 2002
Congregations are an essential part of turning non-believers into converts. However, even with a sold-out crowd, Saturday's concert with the vaguely religious and wildly popular Creed proved once and for all that the Florida group is not a Christian rock band, nor is it a very good rock band.
Though it played to 16,000 adoring fans at a moment when it is unequivocally the big kahuna of rockdom, Creed did not rise above its many naysayers' contention that it manufactures angst-flavored bubble gum. Or at least, it didn't make a believer out of this writer.
The last time I saw the band was at Woodstock '99, when it played an afternoon set on a no-frills stage amid a lineup of hedonistic, hard-thrashing metal bands such as Korn and its soon-to-be nemesis Limp Bizkit. That day, Creed was a fish out of water (or mud, rather, which was more prevalent at the '99 event).
On Saturday at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Creed could not have been more in its element. For one, its new album "Weathered" has been No. 1 for the past two months, and at least one of its harshest critics, Rolling Stone magazine, has the group on its most recent cover.
More to its advantage, it had its own stage, pyrotechnics and crowd. Playing under four giant Roman columns and video screens showing New Agey, eerie images, (the whole thing suggested Spinal Tap with a Tolkien twist), Creed certainly did not shy away from rock-god status in its stage setup. Flames and fireworks shot from the stage during the opening of "Bullets" and "Freedom Fighter," two high-octane rockers. To be certain, anybody thinking they would be getting a straight-laced Christian rock concert had to know otherwise right away.
Unfortunately, all the fiery showiness did not cover up the popular belief that lead singer Scott Stapp still does not have his own identity. The scrappy, hunky frontman looked like a cross between a professional wrestler, Jim Morrison and Jesus himself as he stretched out his arms to the crowd or crouched down in "rock-attack" mode. Worse, he sounded like a hoarse version of Eddie Vedder throughout the show, singing generic anguish lines such as, "I feel angry, I feel helpless, wanna change the world" (from "One").
Stapp might have deserved a break from all the barbs if he did not also come across so cocky. He makes Jon Bon Jovi, another trite keep-the-faith singer, seem humble. Before "With Arms Wide Open," he made a self-congratulatory speech about "rocking from the heart." Before "My Own Prison," the title track from the band's 1997 debut album, he said, "This song is very special to us because it was our introduction to the world." He then added, like James Bond making a move on a vixen, "and I think you know what it is."
For a band that's so popular and visceral, it really did not spawn much frantic reaction until its encore. Granted, people were cheering, especially for the hits, but the show never had that unabashed, ceaseless outpouring that fans give to U2, Pearl Jam or even Bon Jovi. Maybe that's why the group had microphones pointed back at the crowd. The one thing Creed did have going for it was opening band Tantric, which took the imitator theme of the night to new heights by sounding like an even paler, less-inspired version of the headline act.
-- Chris Riemenschneider is at chrisr@startribune.com .
Posted on Mon, Feb. 18, 2002
MUSIC REVIEW: Creed plays it too safe for rock
BY JIM WALSH
Pop Music Critic
Four young men played drums and electric guitars in a hockey arena in St. Paul this weekend in front of a sold-out crowd of 16,000. The concert had flashpots and thrusting fists and two hours of loud noise and sweat.
Rock 'n' roll, right? Uh-uh. Creed.
However you define it in its many incarnations, rock 'n' roll has an element of danger to it, more than a healthy dose of sex, and a feeling of liberation that makes a bubbling cauldron of the joint, which threatens to pop its lid and extend out into the rest of the world. Creed's performance ? as chaste as a church service whose preacher spouts Big Duh messages about Big Questions ? was a Tupperware bowl, unburped.
Singer Scott Stapp named his 3-year-old son Jagger (and pointed to him in the wings near the end of the show), but throughout the concert, Dad's rigid good-boy-next-door hips and squatting (not dancing, heaven forbid) wasn't remindful of Mick Jagger so much as Jackie Chan approaching the commode.
To that end, it's not difficult to see why the Florida band has become so popular and why its latest album "Weathered" has been on top of the charts for the past two months: In an age of heavy rock that tackles complicated themes (System of a Down) and scares parents (Korn, Marilyn Manson), Creed is the safe grunge revivalist you can bring home to Mom and country and church camp.
Stapp, whose messiah complex played out throughout the two-hour show not unlike Billy Graham dressed up like the lead singer from Stillwater in "Almost Famous," thanked the crowd early and often for making Creed so popular. At one point he told them, "So now you live on in the words of a song. You stand here with me now," and introduced several songs by saying, "I think we've all felt the way this next song describes."
But Creed is all tell-don't-show, which makes its sloganeering difficult to fully ingest on a personal basis, the way the best music is. When Stapp sang to the adoring throng, "Children, don't stop believing in light," it was a nice Kodak moment, but wholly undeveloped. When he sang, "What is the truth, tell me the truth," which he finished by saying, "I guess that's something to think about," it brought to mind something Johnny Rotten said at the conclusion of the Sex Pistols' last show: "Ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"
Undoubtedly, the band and their fans read reviews such as this as having been written by someone of little faith or by a "nonbeliever," which is merely more of the same head-in-the-sand dogma that doesn't fully embrace the ongoing mystery of life. Faith or whatever word you want to use for God or soul or spirituality is an extremely personal work in progress, and to have it sold in slogan-songs or at the concession stand is insulting to the journey itself.
At one point near the end of the show, Stapp gave the predictable sermon about unity after Sept. 11 ? a showman's canned pandering to the flock that instantly felt like comfort food gone stale, just as the chant of "U.S.A.!" that briefly filled the arena felt like a wave of Reddi-wip nostalgia.
Similarly, much has been said about how welcome Creed's chart-topping success has been, amid the superficiality of boy bands and Britney Spears. But that comparison invites the question as to which is more superficial: "meaningfulness" hawked as mass salvation, or pop sold as bubblegum?
Besides, Spears' current hit "A Girl, Not Yet a Woman" is far more interesting ? and more rock 'n' roll ? than anything Creed played Saturday night.
Who: Creed
Where: Xcel Energy Center
When: Saturday night
Capsule: The chart-topping band pandered and sloganeered, but it didn't rock.