Creed losing cred

So Creed is being sued by some of their own fans because they felt a recent concert wasn’t up to par:

The suit contends that “during the Creed concert, Stapp left the stage on several occasions during several songs for long periods of time, rolled around on the floor of the stage in apparent pain or distress and appeared to pass out onstage during the performance.”

Now I am not a Creed fan. I am not a big fan of earnest uplifting music, in general. Just my taste. I like loud pounding heavy music, filled with angst, anger, and head-thumping joy. So I cannot comment on what Creed normally is like in concert, and what happened in Chicago (I typed in Florida originally – that’s a mistake – it happened in Chicago). Scott Stapp is having marital problems. (I’ll say! “His estranged wife Hillaree” just beat him about the head and neck with a cell phone.) Problems indeed.

It is a lot of money to pay for a lack-luster concert. Yes.

But: THAT IS THE RISK YOU TAKE WITH LIVE-PERFORMANCE.

This kind of customer-running-the-show mentality is what is killing Broadway. Nothing has a chance to live. Things must be allowed to have off-nights, people must be allowed to fail … Not ad nauseum, of course, but when you go to see a PLAY, as opposed to a MOVIE, you have to factor in the fact that these are human beings, live, in front of you. That is part of the thrill.

I saw Rickie Lee Jones years ago. Lyle Lovett opened for her. Lyle Lovett was incredible. Absolutely riveting, his entire band in grey suits, like the guys in the Matrix. Rickie Lee Jones seemed to have slipped off into an alternate reality. Rickie Lee Jones also slipped off her stool at one point. Rickie Lee Jones berated her own guitar player in front of the entire crowd. My boyfriend and I held hands in terror, watching the woman disintegrate. We both got the giggles, finally, because the atmosphere was so strained. As Rickie Lee Jones swayed and staggered her way about the stage, bursting randomly into song, making snarky comments at her band, and then, at one point, turning and YELLING at the audience, telling us to “SHUT UP”, my boyfriend and I sat there, snorting with laughter, crying, making a scene. Rickie Lee Jones kept acting insane. And we KEPT trying to stop laughing, and get it together, but she just KEPT acting insane.

Anyway. I didn’t freakin’ SUE Rickie Lee Jones. Her wacko behavior was actually kind of the fun of it.

Nobody wants to take a risk anymore. And the prices are so damn high that I can’t say I blame them. I’m not gonna go see stuff on Broadway unless I absolutely know I will have an amazing time, because I don’t have 100 bucks to burn.

Alexis Petridis comments on all of this in The Guardian. There are a couple of (of course) huge generalizations about Americans in the piece (WHATEVER, dude) – but his points are well taken, I think.

On the other hand, however, it sets a frankly terrifying precedent. If the lawsuit is successful, where will it lead? Every band has their off nights – will any dissatisfied fan then go rushing to court? Who will decide what constitutes a substandard show? How? And will the Vines spend the rest of their lives being hauled before a succession of judges?

And I LOVE this sentiment:

The whole notion of audiences suing bands is predicated on the old cliche that the customer is always right. But in rock and pop music, that is simply not true: the customer is frequently cloth-eared and obdurate. The evidence is all around us. Cowed by tumbling sales figures and declining profits, the music industry has become so reactive to public opinion that it is having a detrimental effect upon the music it produces. In 2003, no self-respecting big label would think of launching a pop act without recourse to market research. And artists get only one shot at success. If a band’s debut album fails to sell enough copies, they are almost guaranteed to lose their record deal.

If the same logic had been applied in the early 1980s, U2 would have been dropped after their disappointing second album. Rock history is filled with bands that failed to please the public during their own lifetimes, yet proved to be vastly influential.

Make sure you read to the bottom of Petridis’ piece, where he lists “6 crowd-displeasers” – concerts through the 20th century where fans revolted, or where rock stars lost their minds, on stage, in front of thousands of people.

Rickie Lee Jones, alas, is not on the list.

It’s a funny memory, though. Rickie Lee swaying alarmingly as she goes to get a sip of water. (My boyfriend barks out a loud laugh.) Rickie snaps at the crowd: “You guys all just need to shut up!” (I guffaw. Inappropriately.)

Added editorial note: I suppose some of Creed’s music could be termed “heavy”, with the throbbing guitars during the break in “Higher”, that one weird chord change (which, I do admit, is pretty cool – that’s the only part of that song I like – that one weird chord change in the middle of the guitar break), a wall of sound, but, for me, there’s something lacking. It falls flat to my ears. There’s something general about it. Or recycled. I listen to “Monkey Wrench” by The Foo Fighters, or “Lithium” by Nirvana, and I have to hold myself back from wrecking my own house in utter delirium. The music is transportive.

I’m just writing this to acknowledge that yes, some of Creed’s stuff could be qualified as “heavy”, if we wanted to battle about definitions, but it doesn’t generate the same “Oh my God, I am going to FREAK OUT” response in me as other heavy stuff does.

I realize that this is completely subjective.

Well. Maybe not completely.