America’s number 1 rock band communes with its audience

Blender April/May 2002

February 4, 2002 Air Canada Centre, Toronto

As Scott Stapp bellows the tumultuous closing notes of “Higher,” 14,000 fans scream their approval. The audience raises a forest of arms — some pumping their fists, others flashing pinkie-and-forefinger devil signs.

The scene confirms what the charts tell: Creed are North America’s number 1 rock band. More than that, the show also suggests that the Florida trio just might be the perfect rock band for the twenty-first century.

From the beginning of tonight’s 90-minute show, Creed are hailed in this Toronto arena like conquering heroes. Which is pretty much what they are: Weathered, Creed’s third album, has spent eight weeks at number 1, quickly selling 5 million copies, already half of what 1999’s Human Clay sold.

The reason for this phenomenal success becomes clear from the first crunching chord of “Bullets.” Creed know how to play the most satisfying kind of heavy rock, music familiar to the millions of Nirvana and Pearl Jam fans who’ve put Creed atop the charts. As guitarist Mark Tremonti enthused a few days later to Blender, “The rock of the ’80s and ’90s had a harder edge. The lyrics struck people because they wanted something to believe in. Something serious, something real-life — not just funny music to dance to.”

On their biggest songs — such as tonight’s standout performances of “My Own Prison,” “With Arms Wide Open” and “My Sacrifice” — Creed take that grunge-rock blueprint and apply a magnifying glass. Throughout the show, their riffs are vast, their buildups titantic, their musical scope never less than epic.

In the middle of this squall is Stapp’s tormented soul-searching. Halfway through the 16-song set, the band tears into “Weathered,” a brooding song that showcases Stapp’s despondent, earnest and ultimately hopeful lyrics. Like U2 — whose Joshua Tree was the only album his Christian parents allowed the young Stapp to bring into the house — Creed aspire to transcendence.

But tonight, any overt reference to spirituality is smartly kept to a minimum. Indeed, having been accused of being “messianic” by rock critics and Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst — who probably have little else to agree on — Stapp resolutely keeps his arms by his side all night.

Still, Creed aren’t afraid of the grand gesture. In the tradition of arena-rock showbiz, Creed’s set is huge, with four ancient Roman-style columns towering over the stage and a neo-Venetian foot bridge rising behind the amplifiers and Scott Phillips’s drum kit. During “What’s Life For,” two enormous flames shoot up behind the band. Fireworks add still more decibels to Tremonti’s deafening Zeppelin-and-Soundgarden riffs. It’s like a history lesson in arena metal.

Despite all the over-the-top pyrotechnics, tonight’s most telling moment comes when Stapp explains that “Weathered” is “a little bit how I’m feeling right now,” an apparent allusion to the death of Tremonti’s mother, Mary, five days earlier.

It’s a tender respite in a show that deftly opens full-blare before building toward the emotional close of “My Sacrifice,” a hook-laden, soaring grunge anthem that typifies the band’s M.O. and that has taken on an added significance since the events of last September 11. Creed clearly want to pass a sense of spiritual uplift from band to audience in difficult times.

“Here’s what I think our shows are,” Stapp declares from the stage. “Not just the band, but you and the band together.” Maybe he’s right.

.J.D. Considine