Puddle of Mudd

If you take nothing else away from the story of Puddle of Mudd’s big break, you can surely at least appreciate that one of the oldest tricks in the rock and roll book apparently remains alive and well. After nine years of toil for Wes Scantlin, who’d been playing with some form of Puddle of Mudd since the early nineties, he eventually split the band, after one EP and an album, Abrasive. Despite the disbanding, he’d go on to hand a demo tape to Fred Durst at a Limp Bizkit show; liking what he heard, Durst got back in touch with Scantlin, and helped him put together a new Puddle lineup, as well as bag himself a major label deal. The end result, Come Clean, went three times platinum, with lead single ‘Blurry’ - a track based on Scantlin’s custody troubles - a major alternative radio hit in the States. He continues to tour with the band over a decade on, and whilst their commercial fortunes have certainly dwindled, there’s obviously a big enough audience for early-noughties post-grunge to make the band’s frequent worldwide jaunts a viable proposition. Expect a no-frills show if you do manage to catch them, with the setlist flitting between the angst-ridden - ‘She Hates Me’ - and rough-around-the-edges balladry, like ‘Drift and Die’.

Well where do I start? First the opening bands were great. Saving Abel puts on a fantastic show. In fact, they gave the best of the night because the Puddle of Mudd singer, Wes, pulled his same shit, different day. First he missed his flight to Dallas. So somebody from the club had to pick Wes up 2hrs before the they were to go on stage. Then some guy who was in his entourage came in looking for drugs. How uncool. So then PoM come on stage and Wes is all drugged out. Barely can sing and start whining about the sound. Which was fine. Then between sone number one and two he announces that they are gonna play for the next 3 hours. So that pumped up the state. Sone two was better but then he start freaking out on the spot light that was on him. Too bright. So he got out a flashlight and was flashing the light people. Then comes song three. He started it then throws a big hissy fit and leaves the stage. TYPICAL WES. The band needs to dump this guy and get him into rehab. No explanation or words from the band why they did not come back. But he comes out to leave and says it was all about money. No it was not. This guy is on DRUGS. Get him help

Puddle of Mudd have been recording music and playing to crowds since the early 90's and they are described best as a temperamental live performance act. There are often stories of the band refusing to play due to things such as crowd, venue or their own personal feelings towards a show. On their last UK tour however they put on a great show of their alternative rock sound.

Another quality that is synonymous with the group is to refuse to play much adored older material so as the audience began to file into the venue there was much anticipated chatter about what they would actually be seeing. Luckily for the fans lead singer Wes Scantlin seemed in high spirits as he announced the introduction to 'Drift & Die' from the acclaimed second album 'Come Clean'.

The crowd instantly cheers in unison and begins to mosh along to this favourite. Controversy seemingly in the back of the band's mind, they perform blistering renditions of 'Psycho' along with a cover of 'T.N.T' by AC/DC. They thanked the british crowd before playing their two biggest hits 'Blurry' and 'She Hates Me' back to back at blistering speed.

Here we are in 2016 and Wes has managed to stay alive, though not due to lack of trying otherwise. Clearly Wes was in a substance induced altered state but was in a happy, playful mood. Reading other reviews, this is not always the case.

The first half was many of the old favorites, which played well with the crowd in the packed, relatively small venue of 5-600. After the break, they resumed but after a song or two, Wes disappeared from the stage. The rest of the band did what appears to be a regular thing, starting a sing-a-long to fill.

After a few minutes, Wes returned but demanding drink and cigarettes. Once appeased, they carried on to the end of the set. It was an odd, train-wreck-in-slow-motion, can't take your eyes off it, great old tunes kinda show. I thoroughly enjoyed it but it always felt that it could have ended much differently and do so at any moment.

If you are a fan, go see them before it is too late and I think the clock is ticking quite loudly.

The event venue, the event organizer, and Ticketmaster all dropped the ball with this show. 24 minutes before it was supposed to start, I received the postponed notice. They suck because if they cancelled, at least I could have been refunded. Puddle of Mudd suck because they are allowing their fans to be stuck with the bill. I had contacted all parties involved, asking them what provisions they were doing to ensure the health and safety of the attendees since it hadn't been postponed or cancelled. No response except some lame shafting from Ticketmaster. Stuck with room fees, gas, missed work, drove thru snow and for what...to get no reimbursement for their lack of follow through. Screw this band. I never want to see them after this. No wonder she hated him.

There is not much to review because Wes Scantlin was so out of it, he couldn't perform. He used the mic stand to hold himself up, barely got through two songs (which we couldn't hear because the mic was not working correctly), then stormed off the stage before the chorus of "She Hates Me." The band played through the rest of the song, then left. The show lasted all of about 15 minutes. Most of that was spent with Scantlin complaining about the light in his face, walking back to the drums to drink beer, and talking to us in the front row to try and figure out what he was supposed to be doing up on stage. I would never spend money to see this band again.

Puddle of Mudd: DO NOT waste your money. Don't make the mistake we made. They showed up, refused to play because apparently the venue wasn't up to their standards. The same standards that haven't released a quality song in 10 years... Wes and drummer eventually took stage, Wes told everybody to F OFF and turned his back you crowd. Told us he wasn't playing any old stuff. Played jam session for 20 minutes, played half of one song, then told everybody to F OFF again; just in case we didn't pick up on it the first time most likely... Don't waste your time or money on these low life pieces of wet trash.

The opening band Saliva was the best part of the show. They were engaging with the audience and the most likeable. Plus their set had the best sounds work. Trapt's sound wasn't too great, you couldn't really hear the lead singer when he tried to talk to the audience. And by the time Puddle of Mudd decided to come out on stage the sound was so bad you could barely hear the instruments let alone any singing. Plus the lead singer didn't even seem like he wanted to be there. It was disappointing. Actually left before the end of their set.

Wish we had not gone to the concert. There were 3 opening bands, which tells me management did not expect Puddle of Mudd to show up. At around 11:30, it was announced that they weren't even there yet. We left very angry. Later read that they played at 12:30 and only played 6 songs. Definitely NOT worth going to. The 3 bands that played were not our type of music, but others enjoyed them. I would absolutely not recommend buying tickets to see Puddle of Mudd since they obviously don't care about their fans.

I wouldn't know how good their show is because thear jagoffs never showed up to the venue. Instead I had to listen to a lineup of crappy, generic bands with cruddy sound quality. Whoever set up the audio equipment was a total bum. Couldn't hear one word of any of the bands' lyrics,lead guitarists, or drums which actually made them more tolerable for me at the time. Don't pay to see puddle of scrubs, bottom line. I'll be getting my refund asap for the canceled show. What a joke.