Five weeks into their tour, Stone Temple Pilots have decided to postpone a dozen or so tour dates. No official reason was given besides the intentions of “to take a short break.”
This was following a very, the best choice of words I think would be, interesting show on Sunday at Houston’s Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. STP was delayed in starting their set, beginning an hour after BRMC closed theirs, shaving off about five songs from the presumptive setlist. STP still managed to play a hearty 75 minute set including old and new songs. A few possible reasons given include flight issues (According to The Houston Press, Weiland was still in flight while the gates were being opened) , and manager induced delays, among others.
Apparently, when a slightly slurring and visibly disoriented Scott finally took the stage, he was a bit of a chatterbox and decided to include a few questionable comments. These included his clean-up date of Dec 8th as when he “stopped doing dope.” He was quick to add after audience applause that “no, no, no, I started drinking again.” Scott then mentioned he wanted to take some time off to take care of himself and “Instead of just having a few shows, I want to have a whole lot of shows.” This can be seen on a recorded YouTube video of the show beginning Here. Other noted comments for the night ranged from early STP memories, his ear piece, and his divorce.
Craig Hlavatly of The Houston Press included this in his write up on the show: “A report about Sunday night cannot come without word on Weiland’s condition onstage, in light of his lateness. He seemed off mentally, a little too meandering and talkative, bringing up his own past drug and alcohol abuse. At one point he did claim that he traded the hard stuff for boozing.”
Although the details aren’t completely clear, Houston’s show paints a vivid picture on some background reasons for postponing the tour.
I must say, after being overly excited about the Bee Cave show, the part I find myself most bummed out on is not actually missing STP, but BRMC. They’ve had to reschedule their headline dates (Dallas and neighboring San Antonio) right along with the Opening for STP ones due to having to reroute themselves.
I am clearly already converted to the gospel of BRMC’s sound, so there may be a biased opinion here, but I dare anyone to say this band ever puts on anything close to a “bad show” through performance or fault of their own. When Rob, Peter and Leah hit the stage, you just have to pay attention. A prodigious concoction of both acoustic and electric guitar and bass action, killer drums, and spell shoegaze style pedal work. It’s genuinely hard not to be slightly (possibly overly in my case) infatuated with all that they do. I hope Sunday’ s Houston crowd at least had the satisfaction of seeing this awesome band for the night.
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club have been playing a mostly Beat The Devil’s Tattoo heavy setlist for their first few shows opening for STP as well as their headline show at The Glass House in Pomona, California. In addition, making sure to sprinkle in a good heaping helping of albums past including tracks such as Weapon of Choice, Berlin, Stop and Ain’t No Easy Way .
The new date for the original Saturday show With STP, BRMC and TAB the Band is now October 22nd. It is sincerely desired that Austin gets a fresh faced and ready to rock STP in October, best of luck to them, and of course, the return of BRMC is beyond greatly anticipated.