Today marks the 20th anniversary of Stone Temple Pilots’ well-known show at the House Of Blues in Las Vegas on August 12, 1999. The show was recorded for MTV Spankin’ Live and parts of it were aired shortly after the concert in a tumultuous year for the band that ended with Scott Weiland behind bars.
Scott had spent the first half of 1998 as a solo artist touring his ’12 Bar Blues’ album, admittedly spiraling more and more out of control on heroin and cocaine as the tour went on, until his very public May 31 arrest in New York City. The tour was over. The solo career was over – for a while. He went off to Rehab.
STP reunited in January ’99 with a sober Scott and started writing and rehearsing for their next album. They were cautiously hopeful at the start, playing an unannounced invitation-only show at the Viper Room on March 16 to let the world know the band was back together. However, the work on ‘No.4’ stopped and restarted several times as Scott fell and got back up again.
STP was finally finishing the recording of the album over the summer when Scott overdosed on heroin on the 7th of July. It was near-fatal and he was hospitalized and detoxed in rehab. Surprisingly, STP played an unannounced 7-song set at the Dragonfly in Hollywood just ten days later on the 17th.
The overdose and hospitalization were a violation of his probation on a 1997 possession conviction and Scott had to appear in Judge Larry Paul Fidler’s Los Angeles County courtroom early in the morning of August 13.
Despite Scott’s legal issues, STP played the House Of Blues in Las Vegas on August 12, for Miller Genuine Draft’s “Blind Date” series, in which contest winners are taken to shows by surprise performers.
Dean DeLeo remembers the look on Weiland’s face at the final rehearsal: “It was obvious what was going through the guy’s mind. He was a wreck, and it takes a lot for Scott to look like a wreck. We threw the crew out of the rehearsal room and said, ‘Is there anything you want to say? Can we do anything?’ He just goes, ‘I can’t think of three people I’d rather be with on my last night of freedom.'”
Rolling Stone Magazine
Las Vegas 8/12/99 Set List:
- Crackerman
- Meatplow
- Vasoline
- Silvergun Superman
- Tumble In The Rough
- Creep (Acoustic)
- Dancing Days (Acoustic)
- Pretty Penny (Acoustic)
- Trippin’ On A Hole In A Paper Heart
- Plush
- Down
- No Way Out
- Interstate Love Song
- Unglued
- Dead and Bloated
- Big Bang Baby
- Sex Type Thing
- Piece Of Pie
At the time, there was only one fan review submitted to Below Empty. Jason said:
“Epic, what a great show. Tenacious D was booed off stage as no one really knew who or what was going on at that time. We were flown in from all accross the country and had rooms at Mandalay Bay. Miller provided free beer for everyone, a bucket full in our rooms, several at the pre party at RA followed by 5 beers at the show. One of the highlites was the parade of chaos as they walked us from RA to the House Of Blues. Over 1000 drunk people walking the tunnel from hotel to hotel had to be one heck of a sight.”
Jason, review on Below Empty
The day after the Las Vegas show, Scott was sentenced to a year in jail, of which he served 140 days before being released in January 2000. His time there has been expertly chronicled by David Fricke in the Rolling Stone article ‘The Needle & the Damage Done’ a year later.
Here’s the most complete YouTube video with recordings of this show:
Director Mark Racco uploaded unseen footage of the band arriving in Las Vegas and the song ‘Dancing Days’ on his YouTube channel in 2010: