Stone Temple Pilots

When: Saturday

Where: Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre

Rating: 4 (out of five)

Times Colonist

Stone Temple Pilots had one very persuasive item in their back pocket last night at the Save-on-Foods Memorial Centre: A ridiculously impressive back catalogue.

When the energy level dipped, which it did occasionally, or the on-again, off-again voice of frontman Scott Weiland dropped out, which it did early on, the band's hits were there to save the day. You can't put a premium on good songs -- STP were visceral proof of that during their memorable Victoria debut, the first of 11 dates in Canada and one of many during the band's year-and-a-half comeback tour.

The recently reunited quartet, big alt-rock stars of the 1990s with career albums sales of 35 million copies, has a huge pool of notable songs, and their 90-minute, 17-song setlist was packed front to back with singalongs, ballads, and rockers that nearly every audience member seemed to know by heart. The night felt like one big campfire, though at this particular shindig the boombox never ran out of batteries.

Everything gelled during a triple-threat at the midway point of the night: First the ballad Creep, to that point the best song of the night, then the rollicking Crackerman, during which Weiland's trusty megaphone came out, backed by images of Mel Gibson's The Road Warrior, followed by Plush, a mid-tempo monster which had the crowd in fits.

Weiland lit into his slithery snake, whirling dervish routine during this mid-set juggernaut, a shimmy-shake that has been long a staple of the band's live shows. The heavy guns came out at this point in the night: Drummer Eric Kretz's precise thud, bassist Robert DeLeo's low-slung frenetic fretwork, and guitarist Dean DeLeo's always on-point guitar work.

It was such an impressive run, it made the lacklustre opening an afterthought. Nearly 4,000 fans were left visibly underwhelmed by the night's first seven songs, most of which were either off-key or well behind their normal pace. What many of these songs lacked in energy -- a tepid, terribly slow rendition of Big Empty, for example, was saved by a great chorus -- were made worse by almost zero stage presence early on.

As goes Weiland, so goes Stone Temple Pilots. The band, dressed mostly in black, is at the service of its charismatic leader, who stood front-and-centre on a riser. After his slow start, he was every bit the legendary frontman. While prone to bouts of a stoic stature, he was a thrill to see in the live setting.

When the quartet, smiles beaming, locked arms at the front of the stage following the set-closing Tripping on a Hole in a Paper Heart, it of-fered a rare glimpse into the soul of a veteran band struggling to exist in 2009 but doing well with a genuine set of hit-a-minute material.

By this estimation, things are looking good for STP.

mdevlin@tc.canwest.com