Success has Creed looking stern

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel February 15, 2002

In return to Milwaukee, band flushed with fame is acting a bit edgy

It's been five years since Florida rockers Creed began ascending the national rock charts. Milwaukee was among the earliest cities to see commercial promise in the band, providing its first big wave of airplay and large venues to play.

Since then, the Tallahassee rockers have sold more than 10 million albums and have been credited with bringing guitar rock back to the upper reaches of the pop charts.

So it was large and personal feeling the band received upon taking the stage at the Bradley Center Thursday night; more than 16,000 filled the arena to see the band, which has again topped the charts with its latest album, "Weathered."

The concert began on a fittingly bombastic note, with Greco-Roman columns looming over a darkened stage, the sound of thunder echoing through the arena and strobe-light streaks suggesting lightning.

Shortly after came a series of explosions, followed by flares of more than 20 feet from flash pots lined along the back of the stage - the cue for the band to break into the punk-metal "Bullets," from the new album.

It followed with another from the new album, "Freedom Fighter," a straight-ahead rocker that had Stapp booming out declarative proverbs for lyrics.

Creed then performed the title track to its '97 debut, "My Own Prison." It serves to typify much of Creed's music: thunderous drums and bass to underscore the heavy guitar pyrotechnics of Mark Tremonti, a 21st-century guitar hero even though he rarely plays more than one or two short solos during a show. All the while, Stapp hollers away with a he-man drone that evokes earlier frontmen, from Eddie Vedder to Jim Morrison (whom Stapp resembles to a degree).

To the band's credit, its grunge and hard-rock stylings are focused within hummable pop songs of reasonable length. Stapp's preachy lyrics contain an understated Christian theme that keeps the angst and self-absorption from prevailing. The grungy anger and disenchantment in Creed is contained to the music.

A side storm brewing over Creed's success is the wrath of the music press. Critics seem to loathe the band to the absurd extent that the public loves it. The band announced that it wouldn't do interviews or in any other way help out the media during this tour.

A critic for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, in a humorous report, noted that he was disallowed by the band's publicist to buy a ticket to the show and was reduced to holding his ear to a paper cup pressed against the venue's outside wall, through which he could only make out "Eddie Vedder imitator Scott Stapp" and what sounded like a "few lightning bolts from heaven, sent to zap the non-believers of Creed's congregation."

Along those lines, Stapp's introduction to "Arms Wide Open," another of the group's monster hits, probably could have came without statements like "this song opened up a lot of doors for other '90s rock bands."

Better to be a humble rock prophet, and just turn the other cheek to naysayers.

.Nick Carter