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| Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Creed brought a powerful song catalog and singer Scott Stapp’s many positive messages to a near-capacity crowd at Shoreline on their “Summer of ’99 Tour” celebrating the 25th anniversary since their two biggest albums 1997’s “Human Clay” and 1999’s “My Own Prison.” The 140-minute, 15-song show – supported by Sevendust and Mammoth – was packed with memorable, singalong at full volume songs and soaring moments with a hugely enthusiastic crowd behind them all the way.
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| Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
It’s easy to forget that right before the turn of the century, Creed may have been the biggest rock band in the world. From 1997-1999, they released a string of giant anthem after giant anthem. Along with a #1 song, a Grammy (and three nominations), the band’s combination featuring powerful playing combined with positive messages sold 53 million albums, but seemed to draw the snark from critics who continually disregarded the band’s talent and looked for negative stories.
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| Mark Tremonti of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Started by Florida State students singer Scott Stapp and guitarist Mark Tremonti in 1994, the band’s popularity exploded over the next near decade before they abruptly disbanded in 2004 due to conflict between Stapp and the rest of the band (who went on to form Alter Bridge with singer Myles Kennedy). Stapp particularly felt the wrath of critics after a series of incidents involving excessive alcohol and painkiller use and a sex tape scandal involving Kid Rock and Stapp with four women. It took nearly a decade (and a few on-and-off reformations of Creed) for Stapp to receive assistance with a bipolar diagnosis and achieve sobriety. Judging by both his impressive physique and positive sermonizing throughout the show, the stepson of a Pentecostal minister is inhabiting a much better space these days.
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| Scott Stapp & Mark Tremonti of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
After opening with a spoken word intro into “Bullets” (where pyro lit up every time Stapp repeated the “Look at Me!” lyric), Stapp set the night’s tone with an introduction to “Torn.” “Mountain View. What a beautiful night for a concert. Tonight, we want to take you on a musical journey through the human experience as we live it in the physical realm and spiritual realm. Come with us on this trip my friends,” he told the crowd.
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| Scott Stapp & Mark Tremonti of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
The band lifted “Torn” off the ground gently before fully engaging the rockets with Tremonti hammering away with power riffs while drummer Scott Phillips and bassist Brian Marshall laid down a sonic foundation that vibrated the chests of fans and concrete below their feet. Rhythm guitarist Eric Friedman added live depth to the sound to provide the anthems throughout the night with extra punch.
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| Brian Marshall & Mark Tremonti of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
“Are You Ready?” was delivered powerfully with the strings gathering up at the front of the stage as fire shot from the back and steam cannons released continually up front. “Now remember this,” the muscular, black tank top-wearing Stapp told the audience before issuing the final line of “Your life has just begun” as the rest of the band stood on the front platforms with guitars held high.
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| Scott Stapp of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
“Never Die” was dedicated to Brad Arnold – lead singer of 3 Doors Down, who is battling stage 4 cancer. Stapp remarked on Arnold’s childlike spirit. “It helps him to remember that anything is possible. Remember when you were a kid and nothing was out of reach…life slowly beats that out of us my friends…so hold onto it my friends and never let it die.”
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| Scott Stapp of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
“There are prisons we’ve created in our mind,” Stapp told the crowd in the intro to “My Own Prison.” “Self-erected walls and barriers prevent us from moving forward. Adversity, loss, pain, struggle. Any difficulty in life that gets you so wrapped up that you are staggered and can’t move forward is a prison you need to free yourself from. Every day is a new beginning…Life is not about the setback; it’s about the comeback! And that can happen over and over and over again!...Keep the prison time in your rear-view mirror to remind you of where you never want to go again.”
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| Scott Stapp & Mark Tremonti of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
With that, Tremonti stood on a riser strumming one of the most recognizable tunes of its time. Stapp quietly and patiently began the lyrics as he and Tremonti built up the tension as the song coiled slowly for a good 90 seconds with Creed television logos on the big screen before Tremonti dug his pick across the fretboard for the squeal that signaled the release of the song’s full power.
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| Mark Tremonti of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Following “Say I” with windmill-like pyro shooting out in all directions behind Phillips’ drumkit, the band launched into the second half of the set that would feature seven giant hits in a row. Tremonti introduced “What If” with the promise that the craziest, best Creed fan during the song would win the PRS Tremonti guitar he was playing. The audience needed no encouragement and gratefully obliged. Marshall took a huge bass solo near the song and after the song finished Tremonti was true to his word – recognizing a small girl named Annie in a pink shirt on top of the shoulders of her father and bringing her on stage to receive a guitar that was nearly as tall as her – an experience that she will no doubt carry with her for a lifetime.
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| Scott Stapp of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Stapp reached his ministerial peak with the positive – and so true to these times – sermon he delivered as the intro to the powerful “One.” “We live in such a divided world. A system that is intentionally designed to keep us separated – where each of us get bound into different ideological groups where there is no way to connect because we are so rooted in our ideological differences. How can we change anything if we are always fighting within ourselves? That’s exactly what the system wants. EXACTLY what the system wants.”
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| Scott Stapp of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
“Tonight, I see 20,000 people united with music as their guide – coming together with no difference in sight,” Stapp continued. “Just unity. Just oneness. If we start focusing on what we have in common instead of what separates us, that’s 90 percent of what we are. It’s the 10 percent that divides us. The only way we can change this world is for all of us to unite behind it. The only way is one, Mountain View.”
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| Scott Stapp & Mark Tremonti of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Two mighty ballads followed with the power ballad “What’s This Life For” supported by a giant rain of sparks falling from the light rigging above and a gigantic, but tender “With Arms Wide Open” featuring nearly all 20,000 phones up in the air with their flashlights on. “Higher” soared with fire, vapor cannons and strobes emphasizing Tremonti’s solo and Phillips’ powerful drumming to bring an end to the main set as feedback screamed from Tremonti’s guitar.
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| Scott Stapp & Mark Tremonti of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
The band retook the stage for a two-song encore to a standing ovation from a crowd that had stayed. Tremonti laid into the signature intro to “One Last Breath” as the song began softly and winding and then exploded with Stapp’s screaming out “Do you believe?” and the audience lustily singing along with the chorus: “Hold me now. I’m six feet from the edge and I’m thinking maybe six feet ain’t so far down.”
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| Scott Stapp of Creed @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
“My Sacrifice” saw Stapp start the song off with the crowd singing almost the entire intro after a one phrase push-start from Stapp. The song served as a perfect end to the 100-minute, 15-song set that saw Creed demonstrate all the talents and traits that made them huge in their first run and packed 20,000 plus people into Shoreline twenty-five years later.
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| Wolfgang Van Halen of Mammoth @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Earlier in the evening, Mammoth opened the night’s three-band bill with a 30-minute sun-soaked set that put lead guitarist and singer Wolfgang Van Halen’s talents on both the six-string and at the microphone. Van Halen has done an extraordinary job of balancing paying respect to his late guitar-God father Eddie, while stepping clearly out of his shadow. While he demonstrates absolute mastery of the guitar at moments – one need only reference his playing at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concerts to be dazzled by his ability to shred – Wolfgang seems locked into being the band leader and leaning into vocals and song more than long show-off guitar solos.
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| Wolfgang Van Halen of Mammoth @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
The last time I had seen the band was 2021 at Wrigley Field where they opened for Guns N’ Roses. Back then, the band was playing as “Mammoth WVH” - “Mammoth” in tribute to the first band that Eddie and Alex Van Halen had started as kids and the “WVH” tied to Wolfgang’s famous family initials. Four years later - and following the May 2025 release of their third studio album “The End” – the initials have been dropped, and the band has continued to grow together. Guitarists Frank Sidoris and Jonathan Jourdan, bassist Ronnie Ficarro and drummer Garrett Whitlock all go back to the band’s formation and both the camaraderie on the Shoreline stage and their musical fluidity were demonstrable benefits of the band’s continuity.
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| Wolfgang Van Halen of Mammoth @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Wolfgang shared an amusing story after Mammoth’s third song “Epiphany.” “The last time I played here was ten years ago with Van Halen with my dad,” Wolfgang – who played bass with Van Halen from 2007 to 2015 – told the early arrivers. “I have a particularly funny memory from here as there was a guy sitting right up front over there who flipped me off pretty much the entire concert.” At the completion of their six-song set Wolfgang unleashed tap solos à la his father both on the intro and outro of the new album’s title track “The End.”
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| Mammoth @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Sevendust joined the “Summer of 1999” tour at Shoreline for their first night as the feature act on the tour (Daughtry had served in the role in prior dates). Lead vocalist Lajon Witherspoon is perhaps the most positive, engaging frontman in metal and his nonstop smile and engagement of the crowd lit up Shoreline and readied them for Creed. Like the headliners, the band featured long-term members. Bassist Vinnie Hornsby, drummer Morgan Rose, and guitarist John Connolly all founded the band back in 1994 and shortly after their first demo were joined by Witherspoon and guitarist Clint Lowery.
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| Sevendust @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Witherspoon encouraged fans to come down front early on and throughout the show, but security was strict in enforcing seating hierarchy (understandable given the high-ticket prices paid by those in the front rows). Not to be denied his energy and connection, he spent nearly the entire concert at the front of the stage exchanging fist bumps and shooting smiles and locked glances with the crowd.
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| Lajon Witherspoon of Sevendust @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Witherspoon was continually appreciative of the Shoreline crowd as the stands and lawn above had nearly filled by the time Sevendust took the stage. “One day, I’m going to have enough money that we can get a whole bunch of buses so we can take a crowd like you to the next town to show them how to do it.”
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| Sevendust @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
The singer also alluded to the welcoming nature and diversity of the Bay Area: “I wanna’ tell you something. A lot of places, I have to take the temperature when I go in. I don’t have to take the temperature here. You guys love regardless of color. You are the freaking rock stars,” he said to wild cheers. He dedicated “Waffle” to Ozzy Osbourne.
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| Morgan Rose of Sevendust @ Shoreline Amphitheater (Photo: Sean Reiter) |
Drummer Morgan Rose was a vision to watch and a presence to feel throughout their set. The bright red-haired and black-clothed drummer nicknamed “Alien Freak” pounded away at the drums with his arms frequently fully extended above his head before being brought down upon his kit with thunderous power. He frequently threw his drumsticks up in the air with an apparently perfect night of catching them, while often hurling the apparent casualties of his power out into the arms of the adoring crowd.
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