It’s just called “Live”.

This concert was filmed on their “Full Circle” tour in 2009. Joining the usual 4 members, Scott Stapp, Mark Tremonti, Scott Phillips and Brian Marshall, is Eric Friedman on guitar.

Friedman has an interesting story.

Tremonti really got behind him around 2002/3 but his journey starts in 1996, when Kenny Wayne Shepherd pulled him onstage for a jam session. He got a Fender deal at 13 and a developmental record deal with Steve Vai’s label Favored Nations at 15. He appeared on the excellent Submersed album “In Due Time” (released in 2004) and as the rhythm guitarist with Creed on their reformation tour. He’s also in the Tremonti band.

Creed gets blasted for various reasons by critics and haters, but if you look at their output and the years those albums came out, you will notice that their releases acted like a bridge between eras.

“Human Clay” is that album that bridged the 80’s and early 90’s with the newer sounds from the late 90’s. After “Human Clay” we would get hundreds of derivative bands, in the same way we got hundreds of hard rock bands in the early 90’s.

I think of “Human Clay” in the same way I think of “Sad Wings Of Destiny” from Judas Priest which bridged the derivative blues rock from the early 70’s and space prog rock into a sound that I know as metal.

“Bullets”

It’s a great opener, very metal like. Check out the intro riff for aggression.

It’s also the second single from Creed’s third album, “Weathered”.

When I watched em in Sydney on the “Weathered” tour, they also opened with this one.

“Overcome”

“Please allow us to re-introduce ourselves. We have overcome”, Stapp said as he introduced the song.

From the new album, and it was like Creed never broke up. But it was a different Creed as well, as Tremonti delivers a killer lead break.

“My Own Prison”

“When we got back into the room after six years of not playing together, I asked Mark, “what do you want to play” and he said, “let’s go back to the beginning”” was how Stapp introduced this song.

And “My Own Prison” begins. Its slower tempo groove fits perfectly in the set list after two heavy openers.

“Say I”

One of my favourite tracks from Creed as it incorporates a few different feels and styles. If you like Tool, then the verses would remind you of Tool. If you like hard rock, then the pre-chorus will remind you of hard rock. If you like metal, then the intro and chorus riff will remind you of metal.

For me, this is a deep album cut and to see it in the set list, I wish I was in Houston watching the show.

And they jam the interlude groove, which I didn’t think they would do. But they did, making the concert experience different from just playing the song as per the recording.

“Never Die”

“This song is about innocence”, Stapp said in his introduction. I still reckon this is an awesome Pearl Jam song. Maybe more so for the vocal than the music, as the riffs from Tremonti incorporate so many different styles. And if you read his interviews, you will feel like you had the same upbringing as him and his discovery of music.

“Torn”

One of my favourite songs to jam to. Tremonti is a master at creating a great riff.

“A Thousand Faces”

This is another album cut, which defines the Creed sound and make sure you check out the Tremonti solo towards the end of the song.

“What If”

How good is the Chorus and that chromatic Metallica/Megadeth like interlude?

Then they jam. The solo section has Tremonti and Friedman trading licks and none of it is from the studio recording. It’s all part of the live show.

“Unforgiven”

If you are a fan of Creed because of “Higher” and “What’s This Life For” then you will be bored by this song. It’s basically speed metal and aggressive.

And Creed brought back the big Rock N Roll show. Check out the photo below.

They had a similar stage design with pyro and flames in 2003, which at the time was “anti trends” as most bands from 1994 and onwards operated in shadows.

“Are You Ready?”

The groove of the riff is head banging stuff.

“What’s This Life For”

One of my favourite songs from the debut. It’s a ballad, but those last two minutes of the song, are excellent.

“Faceless Man”

“This next song is very personal to me”, Stapp said as he introduced this.

Its cinematic and this part of their music always get overlooked. This track was hidden behind the hits, “Higher” and “With Arms Wide Open” but this track is the piece d’resistance on the album as it moves between rock and ballad and rock and ballad.

And I hated learning it, because I had to change my tuning to an open D5 tuning. But, I believe the open D5 tuning just makes you play with an eastern feel, so make sure you check out the main eastern sounding riff.

This song is Creed folks.

Put it on and crank it.

“With Arms Wide Open”

The anthem, with its “Dust In The Wind” inspired progression. And while it was written for the birth of a child, the song has taken on many different meanings. Tremonti’s finger picking gets a highlight moment, but that defining moment would come with “One Last Breath” a bit later on.

“My Sacrifice”

This song doesn’t get the respect it should. The riffs are stellar and the vocal melody is iconic.

“One”

From the debut album, another song with a killer riff that is fun to jam.

“One Last Breath”

On Songfacts, Tremonti mentioned that “One Last Breath” is one of his favourite riffs. On YouTube it’s got a massive amount of views. On Spotify, it’s at 135.3 million streams, even more than “Higher” which is sitting at 110.1 million streams or “My Sacrifice” at 127.3 million streams.

This song really highlights Tremonti’s clean fingerstyle.

In a Guitar World issue, Tremonti mentioned how he would have devoured all the Classical/Baroque stuff, but subliminally his style developed by devouring the acoustic pieces from metal and rock artists, like “Mechanical Resonance” and the style of Frank Hannon or the fingerstyle stuff from Metallica on their slower tempo songs and instrumentals like “Call Of Ktulu”.

“Higher”

The closer. If you don’t know it, then you haven’t been part of the mainstream.

By the end of it, the band is drenched in sweat, Stapp went shirtless and the thousands of fans in attendance would have gone away happy. It’s not always perfect, but hey, that’s why it’s called the live show. And no live show is the same as the last show. If we wanted perfect, we would listen to the studio albums.

P.S. I forgot that I had this DVD when I did the original Record Vault post on Creed.