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Written by Jason Green Monday, 10 September 2007 13:54

 

St. Louis was getting a special treat in the form of "The Acoustic Hour," one of only four cities selected to host an all-acoustic performance by the newly reconstituted band in the midst of a tour of full-on rock dates opening for Velvet Revolver.

Photos: Todd Owyoung

The Pageant, St. Louis

Let me just make this clear off the bat: I'm with you, the very idea of Alice In Chains reuniting with a new singer makes me a little, well, queasy. Though it's not unusual for bands with missing or deceased members to continue touring with replacements, there's something unsavory, sacrilegious even, about a band that's so intrinsically linked to their singer carrying on without him.

 

In many ways, Layne Staley was Alice In Chains, his menacing, almost demonic growl the band's biggest draw and most recognizable calling card. Staley's drug addiction, too, was so central to the band's mythos that when the singer -- who once infamously sang "What's my drug of choice? / Well, what have you got?" -- passed away in 2002, his heroin-induced death was greeted with sad resignation rather than surprise. How could any singer hope to step into those shoes? And yet the band's reasons for reviving seem surprisingly genuine: "We're not trying to replace Layne," drummer Sean Kinney recently told Reuters, "We want to play these songs one more time...It's kind of a tribute to Layne and our fans, the people who love these songs."

 

It was with an air of cautious anticipation that the sold-out crowd filled in the Pageant, packing the central corridor so tightly that moving was a treacherous proposition, and the outside edges of the venue weren't much more spacious. St. Louis was getting a special treat in the form of "The Acoustic Hour," one of only four cities selected to host an all-acoustic performance by the newly reconstituted band in the midst of a tour of full-on rock dates opening for Velvet Revolver.

 

When comedian Craig Gass took the stage to play emcee, his first announcement was probably the only statement that could have possibly made the anxious crowd even more excited: the evening's concert was being recorded for eventual release as a live album. The audience answered the announcement with thunderous applause, although they were jumping the gun a bit, as they still had Gass'comedy stylings to suffer through. Gass riffed for far too long on such stirring topics as why women look better masturbating than men (perhaps unsurprisingly, Gass' claim to fame is his regular spot on Howard Stern's radio show).

 

When the real stars of the evening took to the stage, the response was almost deafening and most definitely lengthy: the band tried several times to talk without making a dent in the wall of cheers emanating from the crowd before resigning to kicking things off with the gentle opening to "Don't Follow." The song, like its original rendition on 1994's acoustic EP Jar of Flies, opened with guitarist Jerry Cantrell handling lead vocal duties through two verses as it gradually built to its explosive bridge, where new singer/guitarist William DuVall (of the band Comes With the Fall) took the lead. DuVall's voice has the same deep rumble as Staley's but a more soulful timbre, his emphatic wails of "Take me home!" given the kind of authority usually reserved for gospel singers.

 

The band wisely structured their setlist to give the audience a chance to acclimate themselves to DuVall with a pair of songs originally built around Staley and Cantrell's impeccable harmonizing, "Heaven Beside You" (from their 1995 self-titled swan song) and "Brother" (off the band's first acoustic experiment, the 1992 EP Sap), both songs impeccably suited to the night's acoustic presentation. When DuVall finally took centerstage on the ominous Facelift track "I Can't Remember," he proved his suitability for the role of replacement singer, at times sounding uncannily identical to Staley's without ever sounding like he was purposely imitating the late singer. While DuVall will probably never be able to steal Staley's claim to the songs, he thankfully doesn't do any damage to the band's legacy, either.

 

A few songs deeper in the setlist, the band offered up "election time," giving the crowd the opportunity to choose between three possible candidates for next song by their hoots and hollers. The election was mostly for show, however, as even though the epic, brooding "Love, Hate, Love" took top honors, the other two nominees ("Angry Chair" and "Sludge Factory") followed immediately behind.

 

Both "Love, Hate, Love" and "Angry Chair" proved a perfect showcase for Kinney. While his playing had been rather subdued during the beginning of the set, here the drummer was whipping his kit into submission. As the main set drew to a close, the songs were picked for maximum crowd-pleasing effect, particularly singles "No Excuses" and "Got Me Wrong," the latter invoking a massive crowd sing along that at times threatened to drown out the band.

 

Returning to the stage, Cantrell joked "We're done with the hour, do you want some more?" The answer, obviously, was yes, but Alice In Chains had a surprise up their sleeve with a surprising choice of two 1975 classic rock covers. First up was "Curtains," the album closer of Elton John's Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy ("Don't laugh," Cantrell said as he introduced it, "it's pretty good.")

 

After a funny aside wherein Cantrell sang "Dear Mikey" (to the melody of the Beatles' "Dear Prudence") to bassist Mike Inez, the band launched into probably the most unlikely cover ever, a run through the Who classic "Squeezebox." Though the song's goofy pop lyrics are about as far from Alice In Chains' typical M.O. as conceivably possible ("Mama's got a squeezebox, daddy never sleeps at night" vs., say, "Name your god and bleed the freak"), the band gave it a strumming, almost back porch vibe. Cantrell, meanwhile, had a huge grin on his face throughout, at times so into his playing that he almost rocked himself right off his stool.

 

This being a performance by one of the most dour bands in rock history, that sunny mood obviously wouldn't last, and it was completely shattered as Inez played the first rumbling bass notes of "Would?", the band charging through a slightly more energetic take on the version that appeared on the band's Unplugged album. The lights came up and the crowd went absolutely insane as the band eased into "Rooster." Above the bands head, a video screen had been adding atmosphere throughout the show, but for the evening's closing song, it became central to the performance, showing quotes from Cantrell's father (the song's title character) alongside battle footage from the film Platoon and anti-George Bush propaganda. Though a few times DuVall's voice became a bit too histrionic for his own good, Cantrell's intricate, phenomenal guitar solo brought things back down to earth, Duvall beautifully pulling together the song's ending over Kinney's marching drumbeat.

 

Though the overall set was brief, the special nature of the show, and the surprising fact that it actually lived up to the expectations built over the decade-plus since the band last toured, left the entire sold out crowd more than adequately satisfied. | Jason Green

 

 

Setlist:

 

Don't Follow

Heaven Beside You

Brother

I Can't Remember

Nutshell

What the Hell Have I?

Love, Hate, Love

Angry Chair

Sludge Factory

No Excuses

Down in a Hole

Got Me Wrong

 

Encore:

Curtains (Elton John cover)

Squeezebox (The Who cover)

Would?

Rooster