Stone Temple Pilots Live- Wicked Garden

July 8, 2008 found me at Peabody's, a sports bar in Saratoga, NY, as a contestant in a last man standing contest being done by a couple of local sister radio stations for tickets to next week's MLB All-Star Game at Yankee Stadium.

Unfortunately, I got eliminated rather quickly (first name drawn in the second round), but some other good came out of it. At the beginning of the contest, it was announced that the first name drawn (the first loser) would score a pair of tickets to the Stone Temple Pilots concert which was taking place up in Glens Falls, about 20 minutes north. Well the guy didn't want them...and neither did any of the subsequent losers before me. I didn't know if anyone had claimed them or not so I asked Jeannette, the promotions goddess at Regent Communications of Albany if they were still available. She thought they weren't but then my buddy Jeff Mrozek, afternoon jock at Q103 (q103albany.com) said they were and handed me the pair. So off I went to the show.

Opening band started at 7:30, I arrived there around 9:00. Fortunately it was still between acts and STP took the stage about 20 minutes or so later. The Civic Center was embarrassingly empty for a band as big as Stone Temple Pilots. The floor was only half full...directly across from me I could see many empty seats even in the first rows. To my left and directly across from the stage the 5 sections that wrap around that end of the arena were all but empty...just a few people scattered here and there.

But from what I saw (I left a little over an hour into the show because some security jackoff wanted to confiscate my camera and hold it until the end...I could have stayed and got my camera back after the show but I was totally wiped out and had a nearly 2 hour drive home), the recently reunited STP were awesome. Scott Weiland was pitch perfect. Still a little flaky even though he's supposedly clean and sober...but, as always, a great entertainer.