Creed’s diamond-selling (or, if you prefer, 11-times platinum) second album catapulted the Tallahassee foursome to US superstardom (and the UK Top 30, not that anyone had time to notice).
It’s not hard to see why they struck gold: they merged grunge’s squall with classic heavy riffing, Scott Stapp’s Eddie Vedder-style croon and, in Higher and the sombre American chart-topper With Arms Wide Open, the melody-drenched hit singles that still define them. A quarter of a century on, it’s augmented by a 1999 live show from Texas featuring much of Human Clay and the debut My Own Prison. It sizzles from the moment Stapp bellows: “Are you ready to rock?”
The digital version adds slightly different mixes of the singles, a reworked, acoustic With Arms Wide Open, a perfunctory cover of Alice Cooper’s I’m Eighteen, and a pumping live version of Roadhouse Blues where they’re joined by Doors guitarist Robby Krieger and the audience do much of the vocal work.
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Even then, it felt like it couldn’t get any better for Creed. And so it proved, as members slipped into addiction and acrimony before the inevitable reunions. Human Clay, though, was their moment.
