Arts & Entertainment Stone Temple Pilots crash and bum shortly after take-off Fox Fest provides another mediocre evening of generic nff rock By Jay Schreiber te make up of a Fox Fest is a simple combination of easily gathered objects. First we have to pick a venue; in this case, GM Place was just fine for that role. Next, pick a handful of generic rock acts that everyone would recognize. For this, we call upon the recently reunited Stone Temple Pilots, as well as Canadian indie-rockers Sloan. Both bands have always been steady rock acts and are usually associated with having “that song on the Fox.” And the third element is 12,000 18- 35 year olds that make up the 99.3 Fox demographic, all drinking the same $8 beer I might add. Vancouver-based band Incura helped to open up the show at a surprisingly early 6:30 p.m. set played to the incoming crowd. Incura has been around for nearly four years, and has recently been discovered, having won the Seeds ’08 Battle of the Bands. Their style was surely the factor that made them a favorite; melding metal riffs with soaring vocals all kept together with synthesized intros. After a short set, GM Place began to fill in anticipation of Canadian rocker group Sloan’s arrival onto the stage. While GM Place has never been the best venue for sound, it was especially discomforting to listen to an almost entirely echoic set from Sloan. After all, the garage was designed to carry the mighty roar of Canucks fans rather than a distorted guitar. Sloan’s music is best enjoyed in a more intimate club setting such as the Commodore or the Plaza, or for that matter any other club on Granville Street that they’ve played before. Nevertheless, they pulled out a decent set filled with newer songs from their recent release Parallel Play. As well as newer songs, Sloan resorted to performing their popular hits “The Other Man,” “Rest of My Life” and closed their set with the crowd pleaser “Money City Maniacs.” The highlight of their set came when the natural reverberation of GM Place worked in favour of 14 Sloan’s performance of “The Other Man,” which got the crowd to sing along more than any other song of the night. Stone Temple Pilots (who showed up 15 minutes late thanks to Scott Weiland’s difficulties at the Border) kicked off their set with the breakthrough song “Big Empty” and launched into a set full of old material. Scott Weiland is no rookie to Fox Fest however, having played two years ago with the generically fabricated band Velvet Revolver. Six months ago, while on stage with this band, Weiland announced it would be his last tour with Velvet Revolver and within a month, Stone Temple Pilots announced a 64-city tour. The term “comeback tour” is pushing it in this situation due to the fact that STP has been broken up for under five years. Their set continued with singles such as “Creep” and “Crackerman” amongst the odd B- side track. Weiland and the gang were unfortunately unenthusiastic, as was Sloan earlier on, and even the five drunk jocks in the mosh pit seemed not to care. I blame Scott Weiland. Why do I take such a bias, you ask? It was he who caused the break-up of STP and the creation of Velvet Revolver, and it was also he who announced he would leave Velvet Revolver for the reunion of the Pilots all within half a decade. Such musical trends have been seen before with the melding of Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden together forming Audioslave. After six short years and three albums, Audioslave parted ways and Rage had a one-off reunion show at 2007’s Coachella Festival. In case I haven’t proved my point yet about similar musical trends between these bands, Audioslave headlined Fox Fest in 2005. The difference in this case is that whereas Rage Against the Machine had reached their prime and decided to stop while they were ahead, the Pilots hit their mark in the mid-90’s and they have been kept around due to legal issues over the length of their contract. It was Scott Weiland who was held up at the border causing a delay, and Mr. Illustrious Frontman himself found it troublesome to engage the crowd during the show. If this were to truly be a reunion show, then one would expect to see something new or exciting (if not for the sake of reuniting, then at least for the sake of the $80 its costs to enter the building). Sadly, the Stone Temple Pilots appeared to just be going through the motions and without a new album to support them, there isn’t much new to bring to the table. Unfortunately, Weiland’s vocals were flakey and seemed to be pre-recorded at some times. And if he couldn’t sing it himself, he made a half-assed effort to engage the crowd during a sing-a-long to “Plush,” their most famous tune. The only thing that was said to the crowd was a compliment from bassist Rob DeLeo about how beautiful and friendly everyone is in our city, although to be fair he did forget to specify which city he was in. The STP finished their set with “Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart,” and tepidly left the smoke filled arena. While a decent light show made the performance more tolerable, it didn’t make up for the lack of quality that was expected. Scott Weiland should realize that there was a reason Stone Temple Pilots broke up in the first place, and that trying to re-kindle the same thing that failed five years ago just doesn’t work. The 90’s are over; get used to it!