[Dogstar]

Ok, I'm really tired, but I had to get this all down before I forgot everything!

It was amazing this show made it through at all with all the problems that beset it. Here goes:
I did not get my spot on the rail in front of Mark, but I did get on the catwalk, about 2/3 of the way down on Mark's side. A great view nonetheless. After waiting outside since 7:30 a.m. during intermittent snow, we FINALLY got our spots at about 6 p.m. The show, which was supposed to start at 7:15, did not get going until almost an hour later because the TBA band, whom no one would name, did not show. Stereo Fuse kicked things off between 8 and 8:15, did a decent job and got a nice hand from the crowd. The Bryce Jordan Center, which seats about 12,000 for a concert, was a little more than half full. Security types said they sold between 6,000 and 7,000 tickets. Kind of small for a Creed crowd, I thought.

Creed took a little longer than usual to come out, at least in comparison to the two previous shows I had attended. They finally ripped into a searing version of Bullets at about 9:30 and things seemed fine. Well, three chords into the next song, Freedom Fighter, one of Mark's amps blew. Scott Stapp kept things going as best he could, teasing us about anticipation and asking Flip to "show us what you got." Flip happily obliged for about three minutes and just pounded the hell out of the kit to the delight of many. Scott got pretty animated with the people on the rail, made lots of gestures and eye contact and kept everybody pumped. Freedom Fighter then went on without any problems. After the song and a raucous hand from the pit, Scott S. walked down the catwalk and yelled: "This place needs to wake the f*** up!) Get your asses out of the seat. You did come to a rock show, didn't you? These people sure did (at this point, he pointed around the rail and the catwalk and at all the people on the floor.) Stand up!"
So about half the people obliged and Creed then tore into What If (I might be wrong about the exact time he implored the crowd to wake the f*** up).

After What If, he still wasnt' satisfied that enough people were standing. The pit people were loving this and eating it up, cheering wildly. It was a more mellow pit as far as pushing and shoving goes. Not at all like Ft. Wayne. I actually had room to groove a little.
He then exited the stage and said through the mic that he wasn't going to come back until everybody got loud and got up.
So finally, the place goes nuts and he comes out and they do Torn and then Say I, I think. That's when the technical problems started. They started the video montage that precedes Who's Got My Back. Well, it finished but no Creed. We were like, WTF? After about 5 minutes, an annoucement is made that there has been a power failure and that there will be a 15 minute delay. During the power failure, the crew worked on Mark's amps again. Seems some fuses were blown or something. I thought on a couple of occasions Mark's guitar sounded out of tune as well.

They finally get that straightened out and the next few songs were WGMB, Hide, MOP, OLB, WAWO, and Weathered, I believe. But during these songs the technical glitches continued. Scott's mic failed a couple of times and he kicked the amps behind him on two occasions. Also, there seemed to be a problem with the bass volume, as he kept gesturing to someone backstage behind Brett to either turn it up or down.
Also, in between the songs, he thanked the crowd for its patience and said, "I don't care about computer problems, I don't care about electricity, I don't care about technology. What I do care about is each and every one of you who came out tonight."

On another occasion, he said there was something bigger than he and us that would let him talk to the crowd through the music and that nothing would stop the show as long as the mics were working. He complained about the mic again and said: "I'll sing by my goddam self if I have to." He clearly was not a happy man.

He did pour everything he had into his singing and stage presence , and I think his voice suffered for it on some of the songs. I just think he was so aggravated and disappointed that he tried to overcompensate. That effort wasn't lost on the finally pumped-up crowd. Everybody sang to every song, and he thanked us over and over again for *helping him out* on the singing. By that time the crowd was in its usual Creed frenzy, as he had played to the folks in the seats more than usual, once they were all standing.

Also, during the songs that came after the power failure, Scott mouthed thank you to folks in the pit on Mark's side twice, then mouthed: "We suck" as in the band sucks. He also mouthed "Not my best, Not my best" as he put his hand to his chest in a sort of apologetic fashion. This was on Brett's side of the pit. I felt really bad for the band. They were having a tough night, but they all soldiered on when I think most bands would have just packed it in.

I expected to hear One, WTLF and possibly DSD, as they had not played it, and instead, Scott whispered something into Mark's ear and they ripped into the usual encore songs: Higher, then My Sacrifice. No official encore, but those were the encore songs. I think they had had enough of the technical problems and didn't want to make us wait anymore as we had spent half the night waiting. Before they gave out the goodies (pics, set lists, etc), Scott said, "The next time we do a show here in State College, could you please tell them to change the fuses? They then gave out all the usual stuff, but Scott added a few: The mic, headset and power pack went into the pit on Mark's side. With that they left with the usual waves from Flip and Mark. I didn't see whether Scott waved. The crew immediately came out and started disassembling the set.
And security confiscated the mic, headset and power pack, much to the dismay of the folks who'd caught them.


My guess is there is more than one person from the crew who is out of job because some of the problems were definitely crew-related.

I still had a great time nonetheless because the boys really did try to play through the difficulties and they did finish the show with gusto. I made eye contact three times with the man, but not as much as in Ft. Wayne. Being closer to the corner of the rail and the catwalk is the best place for that. It was a great spot, though, because I got to see more of Brett. He is tons of fun to watch.
Well, I'm bushed and off to bed. I probably left stuff out, but it's the best I could do as I am about ready to drop.