Creed’s triumphant return at Dickies Arena highlights band’s spiritual anthem rock
Throughout their 105-minute show Wednesday night at Dickies Arena, Creed frontman Scott Stapp evangelized earnestly between songs about believing in yourself, spiritual connections and personal perseverance.
His messages echoed and highlighted the lyrics he was singing but also served as a metaphor for the band itself.
The Florida-based band, one of the biggest-selling rock acts in the world 25 years ago, wasn’t promoting a new album — their last was released in 2009. Touring for the first time in 12 years, the seventh stop on their 20-date “Are You Ready?” tour comes on the heels of their summer comeback tour, in which they played Dos Equis Pavilion in Dallas on Sept. 11. They play Moody Center in Austin on Friday, Nov. 15.
Their latest tour, instead, serves as a promotional device for the band, and a blast of feel-good nostalgia for a wide swath of fans who grew up with Creed as the soundtrack to their youth. The enthusiastic sold out Dickies Arena crowd was a testament to that.
During the 16-song set, the four-piece band, plus touring guitarist Eric Friedman, faithfully delivered its blend of anthemic guitar rock, mostly relying on their arena-built, arm-raising hits. The staging was simple with just a few foot-high risers placed at the front of the stage.
There was ample use of pyrotechnics shooting up from behind the stage, smoke machines at the lip of the stage, and lighting effects, but none of it was overdone.
Creed gets ‘Higher’
The heart of the performance was the theme of resiliency Stapp kept preaching to the crowd. Each of the band members, now in their early 50s, including Stapp, 51, know something about perseverance. Bouts of addiction and harsh mockery once dogged the band and specifically Stapp for what many critics labeled as derivative of grunge bands such as Pearl Jam, while others condemned the music as overwrought and Stapp’s persona as more messianic than U2’s Bono.
In truth, those criticisms weren’t entirely off base. But, as the band has said in the past, if you’re going to be accused of sounding like another act, why not try to sound like two of the biggest rock bands in music history?
The show opened with “Bullets” and “Freedom Fighter,” two of the five songs performed from their 2001 album “Weathered.”
Each of the members were dressed in black, including Stapp who wore a body-hugging tank top which helped prominently display his jacked biceps and torso.
They played six songs from “Human Clay,” their 20-million-selling No. 1 album from 1999, including two of their biggest hits, “With Arms Wide Open” and “Higher,” which closed out the main set. There was no shout out to the Texas Rangers, unlike at their September stop in Dallas, during “Higher,” which the 2023 Rangers players turned into a rallying cry en route to the World Series title, including the band attending a postseason game as guests of the club.
Scott Stapp’s creed of endurance
Stapp stalked the stage like a WWE wrestler and preached like a Southern Baptist minister, offering insight into some of the band’s most well-known songs such as ‘My Own Prison,” the title track from their 1997 debut.
“No matter what scars we endure, we wipe them away and we continue to hope, to love and to dream,” Stapp said before “Never Die.”
“Don’t ever let that spirit die, my friends, because that child-like heart is what keeps us connected to something greater than ourselves and keeps us connected to the spirit, and what keeps us connected to God. Don’t let the world strip that away from you. Hold onto it.”
The brief sermons served to introduce songs and offer “context,” as Stapp suggested, to lyrics he wrote nearly 30 years ago and now has a middle aged man’s perspective.
“I want everyone in this room to lock in with me tonight,” Stapp said early in the evening. “Because tonight we’re going to take you on a journey through the human experience through song. And not just as we live it in the physical realm, but as we experience it in the spiritual realm. Those two are acutely intertwined. Come with us on this journey, Fort Worth.”
That’s an ambitious goal, and perhaps too pompous for hardened critics from another era, and a prime example of fodder often used by the band’s detractors.
In fairness to Stapp and the band, however, I’ll take over-the-top earnestness and uplifting lyrical content based on love triumphing over hate. Coupled with those themes, Tremonti’s memorable and often moving guitar lines are more than enough to reconsider whether Creed has been unfairly treated.
‘We are Creed’
During the lone lighthearted moment of the night, one young fan was gifted a guitar from Tremonti before the band did “Say I,” one of the highlights of the night, with Stapp’s vocals soaring with an echo effect which channeled Live’s Ed Kowalczyk more than Eddie Vedder.
Drummer Scott Phillips, bassists Brian Marshall, and Friedman on rhythm guitar, provided a sturdy backbone to the sound, which was precision-perfect as we’ve grown accustomed to at Dickies.
By the time the crowd was singing along to the two-song encore of “One Last Breath” and “My Sacrifice,” the band had offered a triumphant reminder to their fans why they were so huge at the turn of the century.
Before leaving the stage, Stapp offered a final message: “We are Creed, God bless and rock on!”
For better or worse, it encapsulates Creed.
Creed setlist, Nov. 13, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth
Bullets
Freedom Fighter
Torn
Are You Ready?
Never Die
My Own
Prison
What If
Say I
Weathered
Overcome
One
What’s This Life For
With Arms Wide Open
Higher
One Last Breath
My Sacrifice
This story was originally published November 14, 2024 at 12:44 PM.