Concert Reviews

August 19, 2010

Crowd still believes in Creed Review

Regrouped band sounds great again, but Montage Mountain audience was a bit small.

By Brad Patton bpatton@timesleader.com
Freelance Music Writer

It was a somewhat strange, eclectic night of music on Montage Mountain Wednesday as Creed brought its “Full Circle” show to the Toyota Pavilion, along with two other bands.

The first band, Theft, is really just a band in name only. It is really just a vehicle for British multi-instrumentalist and producer Matt McCartie, who on Wednesday played guitar and sang while he was accompanied by three others on guitar, bass and drums. McCartie has released one three-song EP as Theft, “Breathing Underwater,” which came out in January.

Next up was Skillet, a popular band originally from Memphis, Tenn., that plays head-banging, moshing music with a cello and a violin joining in, and they sing about God. “There’s a war going on,” the singer said after the third number. “And I’m not talking about the war in Iraq, I’m talking about a war for our souls.”

The crowd seemed to get louder and more into the music as Skillet went along, and the band’s highlights included opener “Hero,” another song called “Whispers In The Dark” and a raucous version of its hit “Monster.” The five-piece core band of two females (guitar, drums) and two males (singer/ occasional bass guitarist and a second guitarist) were joined at various times by a male violinist, a male cellist and a male, head-banging bass guitarist as strobe lights flickered and smoke filled the air.

Then came Creed, the ultra-successful band from the late 1990s and early 2000s who split up in 2004 after three multi-platinum albums and 26 million units sold, only to reform late last year for a tour and subsequent album “Full Circle.”

The original line up of lead vocalist Scott Stapp, guitarist Mark Tremonti, drummer Scott Phillips and bassist Brian Marshall sounded great again on Wednesday as the band opened with two numbers from the new album before taking the crowd back with “My Own Prison,” the title song from the band’s first album of 1997.

I only got to see and hear a portion of the fourth song before leaving due to an early deadline, but what I did see and hear was good, and the crowd seemed to agree.

The audience grew as the evening went on as there was only a small pocket of fans near the front of the mosh pit for the opener at 7:30, while most of the seats remained empty and a few folks were scattered on the lawn. Even when the crowd grew to full size during Skillet and certainly by the time Creed took the stage at 9:15, it still seemed a little small, especially when you consider reserved seats were $20 and lawn seats were $10.

Creed will next play Gilford, N.H., on Friday, and Holmdel, N.J. on Saturday, while the next concert at Montage Mountain is the all-day “Rockstar Energy Drink Uproar Festival” with headliner Disturbed, Avenged Sevenfold, and six other bands on Friday, Aug. 27.

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