PUDDLE OF MUDD – Striking That Familiar Chord

Puddle of Mudd exploded on the scene with 2001’s Come Clean, spinning four singles, including “Blurry,” the most played track on Modern Rock Radio in 2002. They followed up with the highly successful Life on Display, in 2003. Currently recording their long-awaited follow-up, they’ll whet their loyalists’ appetites with this performance from their intimate Key Club gig in Los Angeles.

Recorded in High Definition on November 16, 2004, Striking That Familiar Chord captures an amazing performance of one of today’s hottest selling Rock bands. Playing a small venue is a great opportunity for these wild-eyed Southern boys to root their performance in the music without a huge production and mass staging. Not resting on the laurels of over 5 million copies sold, the band launch directly into “Control,” and sound like the veteran players they have become while touring the world the previous four years.

Most of the songs sound like their album counterparts as far as arrangements, but have a rough edge to assure us that they are indeed live. Wesley Scantlin sounds a little thinner in his vocal resonance compared to studio discs, but delivers a strong performance full of emotion. Their overall sound is reminiscent of Alice in Chains if Kurt Cobain were handling vocals.

Paying homage to their Southern Blues heritage, they invite Duane Betts, son of legendary Allman Brothers alumni Dickey Betts, to jam on a couple of tunes. Unfortunately, the extended solo sections featuring Duane sound out of place in POM’s short and to-the-point pop friendly songs. Picking up right after these slower numbers, “Blurry” shows up surprisingly early in the set, demonstrating the band’s confidence in the strength of their material.

The disc also features a four song acoustic set. The performance is in a studio; the songs sound nice, but really don’t have the special quality of a live show, and the set is comprised of songs already in the electric set.

There is also the option of watching the concert with commentary. If you have watched a DVD with commentary, you may be expecting a play-by-play synopsis of what you are seeing or some revealing facts about how songs came to be, even just lighthearted banter between the guys. That is not the case in this narrative … five songs in, there is a close up of Scantlin who tells us he wrote this song and it was cool that Duane Betts played on it — end edit. Seriously, that was the commentary? After pressing on through the entire concert, we are treated to four more less-than-informative blurbs from band members, and then an encore of all five as the last edit. Now if the band wants to let their music do the talking, no problem. The disc would be better off without this menu option.

Bottom line, this is a quality concert by a hot-right-now band. If you have any doubts that Puddle of Mudd is a studio friendly band, let those doubts be quelled right here, these guys are the real deal. There are no bells and whistles, just meat and potatoes … and standing solely on their music seems to be working just fine.