STONE TEMPLE PILOTS RETURN TO LIVE FORM AT SXSW

The Rolling Stone review of Thursday night’s Stone Temple Pilots performance at SXSW hit the nail on the head: “When STP emerged onstage at the Austin Music Hall for a special performance at South By Southwest on Thursday, they delivered like journeyman rock stars with their shit together — tight and focused, and unburdened with the bitterness or bad memories from the recent past.” Unlike their reunion performance in New Jersey two summers ago when Weiland was embarrassingly off-key and so fucked up it took him an entire song to take off his coat, Weiland appeared sober and was on top his game, gyrating about and doing that rock n’ roll frontman thing he does so well. For Rob from Metal Injection and I, who had trudged out to a somewhat off-the-beaten-path venue with doubts of even being able to get into the show, it was a trip down memory lane; the band played hits from all five of their prior records and even tested out 4 new songs from their new self-titled album, set to come out on May 25th. The Core-heavy set finished with an encore of The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues,” which special guest Robbie Krieger on guitar, and an impassioned rendition of “Trippin’ on a Hole in a Paper Heart” from STP’s oft-overlooked third effort Tiny Music: Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop.

None of the four new songs the band played were that impressive, but we both agreed that the third, entitled “Bagman,” was the best of the bunch. Still, the band (or someone at their label) has decided that “Between the Lines” is going to be the first single. That song is available for streaming in full here (must be using Internet Explorer or Safari). It’s a stock DeLeo brothers rock song, distinctly STP but sounding like it could’ve been on 2001’s Shangri La Dee Da. For STP that’s not a good thing because that album was sub-par. It sounds like the DeLeos are trying to write songs “in the style of” STP rather than writing from the gut, which is unfortunate because they’re such insanely talented songwriters.

Check out the new song and tell us what you think of it.

-VN

Photo credit: Billboard