If you have fond memories of ’90s rock, you’ll have the chance to relive one or two of them this September, when Live and Stone Temple Pilots bring their co-headlining tour to the American Family Insurance Amphitheater.
The show Sept. 14 is being billed as a 30th anniversary celebration of Live’s Throwing Copper and STP’s Purple and will feature fellow opening sets from fellow 1990s-era group Soul Asylum (led by Green Bay-born Dave Pirner).
For rock fans paying even partial attention in the mid-90s, the two albums being fêted at this show were required — and unavoidable — listening. Produced by Milwaukee native Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads, Throwing Copper absolutely dominated the conversation around its 1994 release thanks to singles “I Alone,” “Selling the Drama,” “All Over You” and, of course, “Lightning Crashes.”
My particular version of 1994 featured way more Purple, which was led by one of the decade’s best tunes: “Interstate Love Song.” As Spin magazine’s Andrew Unterberger put it, “It wasn’t as zeitgeist-capturing as contemporary hits that year by Oasis or Beck, as impactful as Hole or Nirvana, or as generationally intrinsic as Weezer or Green Day, but in songcraft terms, it’s endured as well as any of them, and it never doesn’t sound great.”
That was the most successful single off an album full of them, including “Vasoline” and “Big Empty.” It sounds like the Sept. 14 concert will lean heavily on that collection of songs, giving fans a chance to throw it back with everyone on the bill.
Tickets go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. this Friday, March 22, online and at the Summerfest box office, with a series of presales coming before that. For more information on all the sales, go to the Ticketmaster event page.
