Creed’s ‘Are You Ready?’ tour stop at T-Mobile was a bizarre epilogue for the 2024 election
Creed @ T-Mobile in 2024. // Photo by Isabella Galvan
My attendance at the T-Mobile Center on November 6th for the Creed “Are You Ready?” tour presented by 98.9 The Rock! reminded me that no matter how misinterpreted their initial executions and subsequent missteps, I was a resolute devotee to the ideas that The United States were founded upon.
The prevalence of the memes on TikTok and Instagram Reels matured my ironic appreciation for the post-grunge, Christian, arena-rock band into something quite different. When I saw that Scott Stapp and Creed were coming to Kansas City on November 6th, the day after the 2024 Presidential Election and my dead father’s birthday, I knew that I wanted to be there.
If processing the votes went anything like it did in 2020, there was a greater than zero percent chance that I would be in the crowd at Creed when I found out the results and the course our country would take for the next four years. Here, in the weirdest of timelines, this seemed the only responsible course of action.
The first of the memes that resonated with me played the chorus from their hit “One Last Breath” while someone set up for the day in an empty coffee shop. As the music blasted and the barista rocked out, the video cuts to a view from the outside of the shop in the quiet, dark morning with the butt-rock muffled to about half volume. There was something about this setup and the correlation of the two clips that pulled my heart strangely. Yet, like we do with these things, I allowed it to marinate and moved on. I scrolled. It was nothing.
My first memory of Creed featured the song “Higher” in a movie trailer for the Fox Animation Studios film Titan A.E.
Creed was already such a joke that the inclusion of the song diminished any excitement we had over a non-Disney, animated, science fiction film being released in theaters. I remember the Bob Rivers parody, “My Mouth’s Not Open,” poking fun at Stapp’s vocal style. I remember the Superbowl half-time show. Regardless of ridicule, the band was wildly successful. They were the 9th best-selling musical act of the 2000s, with 53 million records worldwide. Of their three consecutive multi-platinum records, their second, Human Clay, received diamond certification by RCA.
It appeared everyone was making fun of the band, so who was buying these records?
They were not bad musicians; they were just appallingly derivative. Creed seemed to have been caught somewhere in the middle of trying to merge Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, and the Smashing Pumpkins. It felt like there was no other explanation for their sound than a group of label wonks in a room saying can you sound more like Scott Wieland? Can you sound more like Scott Wieland and Eddie Vedder? Somehow, this formula comfortably placed them in arenas for the majority of their run.
The second of the memes hit me harder. The first one resonated because I had been a barista in Memphis and Pittsburgh, and the second one sang to my years serving drinks. Bartender and content creator Matthew Rangel (@therealmattyrangel) posted his version of the Creed duality by setting it in a bar in the middle of a rush. The bartender is taking money and putting bottles of beer on the bar, four at a time, smiling and cheering and singing. When the song cuts to the quiet, muffled version, Rangel shows the same bartender with his head in his hands in the walk-in cooler sitting on a keg. Did you really work in the service industry if you didn’t cry in the walk-in? We all did it. No one was proud of it, but we all did it. We had to do it. The only part that Rangel got wrong was not showing a third clip where the bartender was back serving drinks with the same fake smile on.
This is what got me off the Creed memes and listening to their old records. It was this feeling of putting on a good face but being broken. There was a nobility to it. A defiance. In the face of a life that keeps wanting to beat you down, you still stood strong and let it break you, but broken you stood. It became a meme of bad decisions that survived, the joke of Joe Biden walking off stage, stooping to turn around, and smiling with the caption, “When you are already blackout drunk, leaving the bar, and this banger comes on.” It was the meme of acceptance, random collections of images or clips representing someone or thing that was not cool, that was decidedly “butt-rock,” and unashamed to find joy and light in it.
When the 6th came around and the results of the election were finalized, I had lost a little bit of the sparkling irony that drove me to buy two $34 dollar tickets (over $150 after fees and service charges – thanks Ticketmaster & T-Mobile) to the show. My friend Lindsey was perpetually down for a joke and was kind enough to come with me, but Wednesday night felt weird in a different way than I had imagined. I had known that it was possible, and very likely, for the election to turn out the way that it did. Perhaps I, too, was intoxicated by the bizarre unbalance of it all, but I decided to lean into it and try not to focus too strongly on despair.
We met up beforehand at The Brick for $4 shots of Jameson and Miller Lite. The drinks helped to soothe our hearts and we found ourselves actually having fun. We continually referenced this ridiculous choice, but we were in it to make the best of it. This was a sold-out show from a band which had not put out a record of new material in fifteen-years, willed into existence by the strength of online jokes. I was going for the lols, going along with the joke and I was ready.
When we got to the T-Mobile Center, there was an ill-feeling, pervasive vibe that pushed back against the whiskey and swill lager. Not everyone at the show was wearing Trump gear, but there were enough unabashedly flying their flag that we were a little staggered. It wasn’t the memes, like I had suspected. The crowd, for the most part, were around my age – folks who had been around for Creed’s first coming. The ironic wave I had hoped for was missing and instead I felt like an infiltrator who had come on the weight of a joke to stand on something which these people took quiet seriously.
We grabbed huge, oil-drum cans of Miller Lite and found our seats right before Three Doors Down began their opening set. We joked with the folks who sat around us. “We were too close to the railing, we were scared!” they said. “Don’t worry, we will hold you now,” Lindsey responded.
The lights came down, and Three Doors Down started with a vocals-only rendition of the national anthem. On the stage, American flags flew, and the sold-out arena seemed to scream the words in a single voice. I felt a chill down my spine and looked to Lindsey to see her sobbing. She shook with sadness and defeat and despair just as the arena shook with the voices of joy and victory.
My mouth tasted like battery acid. I immediately regretted dragging Lindsey to this as a joke, I felt like I had been inconsiderate of what this all could mean–the wounds were still too fresh. The band started playing and I told Lindsey I wanted to get another beer and smoke a cigarette but really, I just wanted to get her out of there for a breath.
We stayed for most of the show, but it was lackluster and sad.
I talked with the folks working at the venue, who were delightful. I took pictures for couples together out having a pleasant night. But I couldn’t really get past the wrongness I felt. It had never been a joke. I want to believe in the best of people. I want to believe that at their heart, no one is inherently evil, that even the wrongs that we bestow upon each other are done from a place of love, but that can be very, very hard.
I think the Creed show helped me, or at least it showed me a state of the world that I was not taking seriously. When I left, I felt ok with where things were. Sure the near future of the country was going to get really dark for a lot of folks, but knowing something to be what it is instead of believing for the best allows a strength of resolution most of us can stand on.
I went to the Creed show as a joke, but when I got there, no one was laughing.
Our photographer Isabella Galvan was there to capture the show:
