Cloaca Melodia

PNC Bank Arts Center, Holmdel, NJ I was supposed to go backstage and meet the guys in STP after their set was over. That would have meant missing part of the RHCP performance, but I didn't mind, having just seen them at the same venue a few week before . However, the meet & greet never happened. When STP came out for their performance, singer Scott Weiland mentioned to the audience that someone from their record company, Atlantic Records, had just embarrassed them in front of their friends, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. It seemed like a pretty harsh way of calling out someone. For the meet & greet, I had been told by a rep from the label to go to a certain location in the amphitheater as soon as STP had completed their performance. When I did, though, the rep told me in a very agitated tone of voice that the meetup was cancelled. I found out later that the label rep had told the guys in STP rather loudly backstage that the bill should be reversed and that RHCP should be openin...

Bicentennial Park, Miami, FL..... A local radio station festival called Zetafest.Scott Weiland of STP was just out of jail after being locked up in 1999 for multiple parole violations after a drug conviction. I was interested in seeing STP, but mostly I wanted to see Local H, Vercua Salt, and Filter. Deftones was interesting for a few songs until watching sweaty suburbanites mosh became excruciating boring. They had two side-by-side stages set up and were alternating between them to make the changeovers quick, and some of the aggro-rock bands were so generic it felt like one band was running back and forth between the two stages. A quick change into a clean shirt and voila! More screaming into a mic from the left of the crowd instead of the right. Vercua Salt was a lot of fun, and Local H was enjoyable--although nowhere near as dynamic as when Joe Daniels was still drumming.  Stone Temple Pilots setlist: Crackerman Vasoline Tumble in the Rough Wicked Garden Piece of Pie Big Empty I...