Alice Goldstein Entertainment brought post-grunge rockers PUDDLE OF MUDD back to Las Vegas on Feb 2 for a night at Vinyl inside the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. The show opened with two icons in the Las Vegas local rock scene, SYSTEMIC and CRACKERMAN, who brought their own fans out en masse. Wes Scantlin and PUDDLE OF MUDD have endured their fair of sometimes deserved negative press over the past few years due to substance abuse and on-stage meltdowns, but a newly sober Wes and the rest of the band showed just how impressive they can be live when clicking on all cylinders, as they were on this evening, and the crowd packed against the stage for the PUDDLE OF MUDD show.
AGE made a great choice for local bands to open this show by bringing us two of the most iconic front men in the local Las Vegas scene. Paul Anthony of SYSTEMIC always brings his Disturbed type vibe and unmistakable one of a kind beard, and Tyler Lawson of CRACKERMAN is just, well, Tyler Lawson, there is no comparison needed and that is a compliment to the originality that is always Tyler!
As stated above, there have been some highly publicized melt-downs in the past when it comes to Wes Scantlin and PUDDLE OF MUDD, and if you came to this show hoping for one of those incidents, then you left highly disappointed. If you came to see PUDDLE OF MUDD at their best, then you left highly impressed, and I fell into the latter category. I was one of the few lucky enough to have some inside information after running into Wes at the Rainbow in Hollywood on New Year’s Eve. I got a few moments to sit with Wes and chat, and he explained to me how good life was for him now with his newfound sobriety. From the beginning of the Vegas set with “Control” it was obvious that Wes’ voice was stronger and more powerful than it had been in years.
This show simply went off without a hitch, and the biggest testament and compliment that can be bestowed on PUDDLE OF MUDD is the band came and conquered, enduring a surprisingly long set of well over an hour and a half that contained all of the PUDDLE OF MUDD favorites from “Drift and Die”, “Away From Me” and “Bring Me Down” until the show concluded with probably the two biggest radio hits ever produced by the band, “Blurry” and “She Hates Me”, that had the full crowd on this evening singing along to every word.
It may be too early still in the newfound PUDDLE OF MUDD to call something like this a comeback, but that is exactly what it felt like. The days of meltdowns and issues appear to be behind them, and we are now getting back to seeing the post-grunge rockers we all fell in love with in the early 2000’s. For those like me who were ready for anything to come along to get us out of the grunge era, bands like PUDDLE OF MUDD were a breath of fresh air in those days, and it was great to see them back on top of their game and doing so well. Big thanks goes out to Alice Goldstein at AGE for bringing great shows like this to the Las Vegas rock scene!
Puddle Of Mudd Vegas Setlist
Control
Out of my Head
Stoned
Away From Me
Drift and Die
Bring Me Down
Abrasive
Never Change
Basement
Said
Spaceship
Think
Nobody Told Me
Nothing Left To Lose
Famous
Psycho
Already Gone
Blurry
She Hates Me