With the exception of the increasingly lumpen Pearl Jam, all Stone Temple Pilots' grunge peers are dead, drugged or have disbanded. Yet even their closest associates would have hesitated before wagering their crack pipes on the Californian quartet lasting for 12 years and five albums, line-up unchanged. Singer and lyricist Scott Weiland's heroin addiction, with its subsequent prison term and regular trips to rehab, almost cost them everything. Certainly it cost them most markets outside their native land. Weiland is now a father and apparently drug free, and while it will prove too late to conquer a world that once seemed theirs for the taking, Stone Temple Pilots still have some catching up to do.
Weiland's colleagues' willingness to wait is easily understood, for he is an extraordinarily charismatic leader. Lean, tanned and tattooed, he performs topless, save for occasional Kenny Everett-style dalliances with feather boas and elbow-length gloves. Always marvellously lit, he charges around the stage like an especially feral coyote, spins dervish-like, strikes poses upon a stage-front podium, points (always impressive in a frontman), crouches and, during Vaseline, dodges a fusillade of plastic beer glasses. Alongside him, the DeLeo brothers stalk and brood but never self-indulge, while topless drummer Eric Kretz teasingly waits until the encore, Sex Type Thing, to utilise his giant gong. This is as thrilling as testosterone-fuelled rock music can get. Were the sound not wretched and were the songs more chorus-heavy, Stone Temple Pilots would be faultless.
They have transcended the grunge tradition in all but one respect: there is a mid-set lull as they perform an acoustic section. Balding bassist Robert DeLeo unleashes divine harmonies on Sour Girl and the feast of melody that is Days of the Week, but Weiland's finest moment occurs during the moving, self-lacerating Creep. In truth, the crowd do most of the vocal work, but as he sings, "I'm half the man I used to be", it's as if his past is truly purged.
After dropping his trousers, Weiland exits naked, save for a union flag draped none too expertly around his waist. Even then, with the DeLeos trying to prise singer and ill-fitting, ad-hoc sarong apart, he still retains a modicum of dignity.
• At the Barrowlands, Glasgow (0141-552 4601), tonight.
