Creed: The Family Arena review

Rolling Stone December 1999

Guitar Rock is back they say-but in the Mid-west, it never really went away. Indeed, the heartland may be the prefect home away from home for Florida quartet Creed. No one here seems particularly concerted that the band is something less than cutting-edge; their only concern is whether of not Creed rock.

And they do rock, in a decidedly old-school fashion-from their black lighted logo banner to the imposing stacks of amplifiers onstage to the way singer Scott Stapp mournfully croons and the way he shakes his mop of brown hair. If there’s any variance from the standard program, it’s in the band’s lyrical attack, which takes aim at spiritual issues and offers a sense of uplift along with the requisite gloom and despair.

Creed’s 100-minute set shuddered with brute force through such modern-rock-radio staples as “Torn,” “My Own Prison,” “One” and “Higher.” But at some points the show flirted with redundancy as Creed’s ballads were coated with the same metallic sheen as their up-tempo songs. The highlights came from opposite ends of the blame game: the accusatory “What If” and the apologetic “Say I.” A contemplative “What Arms Wide Open,” which celebrates the birth of Stapp’s first child, was surprising less for it’s content than for the band’s ability to convey such tender emotion in the contest of a hard-rock show. On this night, Creed were true to their name, giving their Midwestern fans reason enough to keep the fail – and if their message was less than revelatory, it still came in loud and clear.

.Daniel Durchholz