By Darryl Smyers, Special Contributor
In the late '90s as the leader of Creed, Scott Stapp sang in front of arenas filled with adoring fans. Last night at a half-filled Granada Theater, Stapp performed with just as much gusto as he did in Creed's heyday. And the fans in attendance ate up every bellicose bellow as if their lives depended on it.
Stapp's emotional, proficient performance on Wednesday evening was quite the surprise from a guy whose recent, well-chronicled bouts with depression and substance abuse had many figuring his musical career was threatened. Instead, Stapp and his locked-in backing band surveyed Creed's catalogue with energy to spare.
Over 75 percent of the show was dedicated to Creed songs, and the audience wouldn't have had it any other way. Beginning with "Bullets" from the 2001 album Weathered, Stapp and crew were focused and on task. "Let's back it up to where it all began," said Stapp before the band launched into the darkness of the title track of 1997's My Own Prison. In a way, those early Creed songs foretell the issues Stapp would grapple with later on with his band and into his solo career.
Interestingly, "Slow Suicide" from Stapp's most recent solo effort, Proof of Life, was an early highlight as the song's confessional tone fit in well with those Creed chestnuts. By the time Stapp got around to playing Proof of Life's title track, the singer was ready to engage the audience as a kind of therapy group.
"About a year and a half ago, I barely felt alive," Stapp told the crowd. "I finally realized that there has got to be something more." That something turned out to be Stapp's religious awakening, as he now professes to be a born again Christian. His current tour is aiding the ChildFund International charity organization. Signed copies of Creed albums were being sold with proceeds going directly to the charity.
Helping a worthwhile charity is one thing, but singing a song like the embarrassing "Jesus Was a Rock Star" is quite another. This is the kind of song that gives Christian rock a bad name, as simplistic jamming and rudimentary lyrics do little to honor its muse.
Yet when Stapp got around to "With Arms Wide Open," perhaps Creed's biggest hit and most accessible song, the feelings in the venue were palatable. "I was told by a man that this song was playing when his daughter was born and was going to be played when that same daughter got married," Stapp told the crowd.
Many in the crowd shed tears during the song. Others swayed and hugged, likely looking back on a moment in their lives where the song served as their soundtrack. Sure, it was fairly bombastic and not a little pretentious, but the tune hit home with this audience. This music, however dismissible it may be, held sway and mattered to those who paid to hear it.
Darryl Smyers is a Dallas freelance writer.
