Scott Weiland’s Christmas tour started last night at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, and some brave soul caught a few minutes of Weiland butchering “Winter Wonderland” on tape. Visually, it’s what you’d expect: Weiland, nattily dressed, doing the inverted-eyebrows lounge-singer thing while an implausibly large band swings away behind him. There’s a Christmas tree at the back of the stage, and Christmas lights wrap around the mic stand. So far, so whatever.
But then, we’re forced to get into the scary business of Weiland’s vocals. The man forgets the words at least a few times — lyrics to a song that everyone knows, mind you — and he’s got the timing of someone’s drunk supervisor at an office karaoke party. If someone had used this exact same version of “Winter Wonderland” to try out for American Idol, it would’ve made the laugh-at-these-fucks blooper-audition reel. Behold the carnage below.
Weiland’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year is out now on Rhino.
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WTF is this, Tintin shoots up and sings?
Scott Weiland’s Christmas Tour: The economic crisis’ answer to not being able to afford a ticket to Michael Buble.
I wanted footage of the audience. I need to see what kind of people are willing to pay to sit through this.
Could not be happier the sound on my work computer is messed up today.
I can read, so I know this was at the El Rey. But my eyes and ears swear this happened in the whiskey lounge of the airport Marriott
This is actually not nearly as bad as it could be. Back in the day, I was an STP fan, so I have seen a lot of videos of Scott performing messed up…and this really doesn’t hold a candle to those. I have to say, I am not really convinced that he is off the wagon in this one. Yeah, he forgets the lyrics and gets off track with the band, which is unexcusable. Still, he isn’t off-key and he is not singing in the ultra-high register he uses when he is wasted. As a former Scottologist, I just don’t know what to make of it.
This makes me think of that video of Allen Iverson, where he’s like “Practice? Practice?!”
It seems like Weiland is trying to sing something that his voice just isn’t up to. He can rawk-sing with the best of them (on record, anyway — haven’t ever watched a live clip), but it looks like he’s just not up for being a crooner.
It sounds like he’s having a seizure… in his throat.