Turned up going to a local venue the other night to hang out with some friends and a cover band was playing. They ran through several Stone Temple Pilots songs, sounded reasonably like STP, no big deal, its background noise. Then all of a sudden, after like 50 minutes, the singer goes, "OK, we're going to take a break and do our second set". Now, I am only half paying attention to this while sitting at a booth and shooting the shit with these folks but I'm thinking "really? You've got a second set of STP songs queued up? OK, you guys really like some STP."
Five minutes later, same band comes back out only now the singer is shirtless. They jump into a set of Pearl Jam covers. Apparently they're called Pilot of Pearls or something and are a 50/50 STP/PJ cover band.
I still have so many questions: is this a subtle commentary on how STP was just a Pearl Jam rip off? Why shirtless for Pearl Jam? Did Eddie Vedder have a topless phase I missed? In the world of tribute bands, are you being disrespectful by covering two bands? Are these guys less of "true fans" than the dudes who solely exist in tribute to one of, but not both, Pearl Jam or Stone Temple Pilots?
Also, apropos of nothing, the singer looked eerily like Jason Mantzoukas if you know who that is. So just imagine a shirtless Jason Mantzoukas doing Pearl Jam covers and wondering if the entire thing was some real ironic hipster criticism of grunge. I'll just never know. I'll just never know.
