Creed - Sao Paulo, BR reviews (fans and press)

[Marcos]

Last night Creed played their 2nd gig in their current South American tour, in Sao Paulo - Brazil's largest city.

The venue, called Credicard Hall, was sold out, which means around 7,000 people were there.

I got the (very expensive) VIP fan package, which allowed us to witness the soundcheck - 3 songs: Say I, Beautiful and Inside Us All (with an improvised solo), all of them with Stapp. They also jammed a song without Stapp, not sure if it's a work in progress or merely an arrangement to fine tune the equipments. I recorded it from the beginning until the point I realized I was actually not recording it... but I managed to get the last bit, which was very similar anyway. I'll upload it to YouTube later. It had a nice dark, moody groove, I hope it turns out into a song.

After they were finished, I asked Mark to play Wish You Well and he did just the intro riff, about 4 or 5 seconds of it with the most smart ass smile on his face! He couldn't spend much time with the fans as their staff excused him for an interview.

Then I moved to the other side of the stage where Erock was finishing his setup, a guy next to me was also a die hard and he asked for Submersed and Projected. Erock played a few notes of Dripping and Watch It Burn.

Brian was being Brian... I missed him while I was with Eric. And Flip seemed a nice guy, didn't change many words with him.

The opening band was a disaster. A bunch of hipsters that mixed British rock (Strokes) with Brazilian 80's rock. The singer was wearing a vintage Ray Ban sunglass, the guitarist was wearing a polo t-shirt, the drummer a cardigan with buttons and the bassist looked like a grunge fan of Pearl Jam out of place. They sucked. The typical band critics love to love but would never appeal a hard rock crowd...

Then the 3 wives crossed the stage to sit on the side. The public went nuts! Mrs. Stapp is a miss indeed, waving and smiling all the time. Mrs. Tremonti and Mrs. Phillips looked scared people knew who they were. But then they smiled and took some pictures of the crowd. Then they realized people were with Creed balloons (a girl made it and distributed on the line). So she went to the front of the stage and asked for one too! lol!

Cutting short to the show, I was on the rail, right in front of Tremonti and his amps. So to be quite honest, all I heard was Tremonti! It was such an immersion into his sound! I could barely Stapp but the parts I did, his voice sounded strong.

The setlist was made of MOP and HC songs, which personally pleased me! Tremonti's playing is insane! He makes it look so easy! And Creed is way heavier live than on the album, Mark is definately incorporating his metal roots into Creed's sound with pinch harmonics every now and them.

It was way heavier and louder than Slash's gig 20 days ago. My ears are still buzzing.

Stapp looked really happy and thankful for us being there. I guess neither of them expected such a passionate crowd. He has some weird, crazy moves on the stage. It was funny! But the guy was made for the stage, I give him that! He's a true frontman, people loved him.

And I got a pick of Eric, who's the nicest guy ever. He deserves to be successful and happy with his careers.

Also worth mentioning Creed's security guards, specially "Hellboy" and the other guy who was on the front of the stage (which I'd like to thank again for handling me Eric's pick as he saw he threw it for me but when I tried to catch it, someone slapped my hand and it fell on the other side of the rail). Despite doing their job, they were really nice and polite, unlike the house's security, which were all neanderthal pricks...

Setlist:

Are You Ready?
Torn
Wrong Way
What If
Unforgiven
My Own Prison
A Thousand Faces
Bullets
Beautiful
Say I
Faceless Man
What's This Life For
One
Higher

Encore:
With Arms Wide Open
One Last Breath
My Sacrifice

[Marcos]

Review from UOL, one of the two most important webportals in Brazil - owned by the group of the largest São Paulo newsgroup:

http://musica.uol.com.br/noticias/redac ... m-2012.htm

Look at the headline:

"Creed does in São Paulo the best stadium show of 2012 that didn't happen in a stadium"

In the crowd, a guy was wearing a t-shirt with a "Play Pearl Jam, thief!" text. In the stage, the "thieves" were trying to prove that, despite their lead singer sounding like Eddie Vedder, the resemblance ended there. There's no way not comparing Creed to the Seattle group, because even some fans get confused by a few songs from the Floridian quartet, that remind Pearl Jam's sound. But at least live, that's the only negative aspect on Creed's sound, if you can name one. Last night in a sold out arena, Stapp kept reminding Vedder in songs such as Torn and WAWO, but also helped his band mates show they could easily handle a concert in a larger space. In this sense, Stapp is the central force. He teases the public to sing along whole choruses, as he did in "My Sacrifice" or get the crowd to sing along in "WTLF".

The support base for the singer is powerful. Mark Tremonti is a great guitarist (no shit!) that not only handles the band's arrangements but also knows how to dose heaviness enough so Creed can sound, in a few moments, like heavy metal. At the same time, he's precise on the ammount of virtuosism. He restrains his solos, but plays them with extreme skill. And he also knows how to play for the crowd. On the come back for the encore, he turned into music the crowd chant "Oleee, oleee, olaaa, Creedah, Creedah" (to make it rhyme) the fans were singing since the beginning of the show."

Live, the band also features a 2nd guitarists, that contributes to give Tremonti's sound even more heaviness. With a 15 minute delay, the musicians came to the stage all dressed in black, in a stage with only a few lights as scenario. Overseas the band did a tour playing their 2 first records from start to finish. Here in Sao Paulo, it wasn't that different. The setlist had 17 songs, 13 of them from MOP and HC, one from their latest work (FC) and the rest from Weathered.

The arena feeling concert had its climax when they played MOP, with couples kissing and girls climbing the boys' shoulders. The quantity of ballads bothers a bit, but the audience didn't seem to care. After 1h48 of show, the impression is Creed played in São Paulo the best stadium show that didn't took place in a stadium.

[abw1987]

Thanks for the review and the translation. Seems they did Sao Paulo right!

[George]

I'll post my review from the Rio and Sao Paulo show later. I got back home a couple of hours ago.


Marcos, I just realized I was the guy right behind you. lol Were you next to Ruy?

[Marcos]

I was beside Ruy's girlfriend, leaning on the rail.

Behind me there was a blonde girl, very short in height, but her scream was way louder than Mark's rig. It certainly hurt my hearing!

[George]

I was behind you and let her stay in front of me because behind me she couldn't see a spin light.