Saturday, Jun 5, 1993
Stone Temple Pilots
Core
- Date
- Saturday, Jun 5, 1993
- Venue
- SDSU Open Air Theatre
- City
- San Diego, CA
- Promoter
- 91X
John remembers this as a 91X festival-style bill. No festival billing is documented: the 91X Sunfest series has no 1993 edition on record, and the 1994 Sunfest at this same amphitheatre did not include Stone Temple Pilots. What is documented is that STP headlined here on the Core tour, and that 91X presented nearly everything at this venue. The date is theirs; the festival framing is his. No ticket survives.
The moment
Stone Temple Pilots were San Diego's own — formed there, built in its clubs — and by this June night Core was multi-platinum, 'Plush' was everywhere, and the critics were unanimous that it was all somehow fraudulent. The audience disagreed by the millions. So this was a homecoming staged at the exact peak of the sales-versus-credibility war: the local band the press called grunge counterfeiters, playing the Open Air Theatre as conquering heroes. A year later 'Plush' won the Grammy and Purple entered at #1.
From the time
- Core
“The 1992 debut critics dismissed and eight million people bought — vindication came later; the songs were already there.”
The stub
No physical stub on file — this show was reconstructed from the
confirmation email. Drop a photo in public/stubs/ and add
"stubImage" to this show's record to attach one.