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My review of the Bush/Stone Temple Pilots/The Cult show in Boston:
Bush went on first for this show (they rotate). I was probably least looking forward to their set as I've already seen them multiple times, but as soon as they hit the stage I remembered what a good show they put on. Each band only had one hour and as Bush had no new album to support, they just stuck to the hits, playing all their big singles from the 90's ("Comedown," "Everything Zen," "Machine Head," "Swallowed," etc.) with a few post-reunion songs. Back in the day people knocked them for being a second-rate Nirvana and derivative, but man, those songs are good. It was a fun, nostalgic trip down memory lane, taking me right back to my Freshman year of High School. Gavin Rossdale (who stopped aging after 1999) was in fine form, hasn't lost anything as a singer and really knows how to work a crowd. He ran right past me and always seems to work off the crowd. Bush probably put on the best show of the three acts.
Stone Temple Pilots went on next. I had real mixed feelings about their set. The band sounded great, they have the goods (their songs are as good as anything that was on the radio in the 1990's IMHO), and new singer Jeff Gutt has the chops to sing all the classics--that said, I felt that Gutt was trying way too hard to ape Scott Weiland. Not only does Gutt sound a lot like Weiland, now he dresses like him, copies his moves, has a similar hair style, etc. It was a bizarre experience watching STP. I know that Scott is dead, but there he apparently is, alive and well, playing with STP, as though the last five years never happened. I like Jeff Gutt, he's a good singer, a good fit for STP and I really like their new album, but I think Gutt should just try to be himself and not try to mimic his deceased predecessor. When Chester Bennington sang with them, he brought his own unique style to the band (okay, he sort of tried to look like Scott, but not nearly to the extent as Gutt). They didn't play any deep cuts, just the big hits from the first four albums and two new songs. Whatever concerns I had, the crowd loved them and they probably got the best response of the three headliners. So while I found STP's set to be a little ghoulish (for lack of a better word), I still enjoyed their set.
The Cult went on last and they were sort of the odd band on the bill. Bush and STP co-headlining makes sense--they were popular around the same time and have an overlapping fanbase. The Cult were never as big as the other two acts and precede them by a decade. Plus, I tend to think of STP and Bush as 90's alt. rock and The Cult as more of a metal band. By the time to Cult hit the stage it was 9:45 and people seemed to be getting a little tired. The Cult still rocked the crowd and Ian Astbury, who is 56, sounds great. He wasn't as energetic as Rossdale or Gutt, but he hasn't lost his pipes and still seems to have the same vocal ability as he did 20-30 years ago. I first saw Astbury when he sang with The Doors (of the 21st Century) and you could hear/see a clear Jim Morrison influence. You could kind of tell who in the audience was there to see Bush and STP and who was there for The Cult. The Bush/STP crowd were the late 30/40 somethings with smartphones and the Cult people were the 50-somethings with bandanas and chains. Still, all three acts got a warm response and everyone seemed to enjoy all three sets.
Opening act Julian K (an offshoot of Orgy) were alright, but sort of generic.
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Originally Posted by RhettButler
