Timeless Tickets: Quad-Cities teen met Creed at The Mark, played sound check at disastrous '02 Chicago show
In 2002, a Milan teen met Creed backstage at The Mark. Months later, he played guitar during the sound check before their iconic, catastrophic Chicago show. Sam Jacks, a 16-year-old music fan from the Quad-Cities, met with Creed at The Mark, where he learned about the band when he discovered them at the turn of the century and began learning about them. He credits his hero, Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti, with helping him save up for Tremontis' signature Paul Reed Smith guitar model. The band's 1999 record "Human Clay" is considered one of the best-selling rock albums of its era. Despite a cancelled show in 2002 due to a major car accident, Jacks and his dad met the band backstage and met with them on August 15, 2002. They immediately hit off, with reviews praising the 6,000-plus in attendance. Jacks also played a sound check at a 2002 Chicago show. On December 29, 2002, he was set to join Creed on stage for warmups at AllState Arena in Rosemont, where the size of the arena was double the capacity of 18,500 fans.
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What's it like to meet your favorite band? What's it like to play with them on stage?
Sam Jacks has the answers. The Milan-raised music fan knows his childhood hero — Creed guitarist Mark Tremonti — on a first-name basis.
Jacks' Creed story starts at the turn of the century, when he first discovered the band. He'd been playing guitar since he was six years old, but the instrument didn't resonate with him until he heard Tremonti on a Creed song.
At the start of the 2000's, Creed was one of the biggest bands in the world. Their 1999 record "Human Clay" included hits like "With Arms Wide Open" and "Higher" and is one of the best-selling rock albums of its era.
By the time 2002 rolled around, Jacks was getting pretty savvy with the guitar.
He had every single Creed song memorized and worked at his dad's car dealership to save up money for Tremonti's signature Paul Reed Smith guitar model.
Creed announced a show at The Mark for May 4, 2002. The gig was later cancelled, after Creed frontman Scott Stapp got into a major car accident in Florida that caused a severe neck injury.
The show was rescheduled for August 15, 2002, and Jacks and his dad got backstage passes to meet the band.
Jacks got his guitar signed by every member, and warned them that the signatures may rub off from how often he practices.
He and Tremonti immediately hit it off. Things only got better when the show started. Jacks said he was in awe, as he and his dad watched the band from the side of the stage.
Creed was worth the wait for the 6,000-plus in attendance, too, according to the two newspaper reviews published locally.
The band opened with "Bullets," accompanied on stage by flames and fireworks, according to the Rock Island Argus review by Whitney Carnahan.
"Stapp showed no signs of his previous injuries, jumping, swaying and crouching down to the audience, who loved every minute," she wrote.
Creed played songs like "Freedom Fighter," "My Own Prison," "Torn," "What If" and "Higher." The opening act was former Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell, who played a couple Chains songs to appease the audience.
One Waterloo fan won floor seats in a radio contest and went to the show with his 15-year-old son. He said it was surreal.
"It went from the concert that never was, to us being right next to them," he told Quad-City Times reporter Thomas Geyer.
On stage, behind the bursting flames, there were simply more flames. Torches backlit the stage, Carnahan wrote, with three screens showing video of the band.
"The stage design allowed the band to be passionate and intimate with the audience, and allow room for Creed to move around and let loose its energy," Geyer wrote in his review. "With its music and stage show, Creed shows that it was not cast from the same mold as other rock bands of this or previous generations."
After the show was over, Tremonti asked Jacks and his dad if they wanted to hang backstage for a bit.
Jacks shot the breeze with Tremonti and Creed's guitar technician until 3 a.m. They played table tennis and toured Tremonti's guitar setup. At one point, Tremonti played Jacks a four-track tape of a demo for the band's smash hit "My Sacrifice." Jacks said his dad sat back and watched it all unfold.
"It was one of those proud dad moments that I look forward to with my son," Jacks said.
A few months later, the 16-year-old traveled to Chicago to buy another special edition Tremonti guitar.
The manager at Guitar Center let Jacks' dad in on news of a contest. Alongside Creed's label, the store was holding a guitar competition, with the winner getting to play with the band during warmups at their upcoming gig at AllState Arena, in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont.
At the competition, Jacks said he finished with a minute-long performance of Creed's "Stand Here With Me."
On December 29, 2002, Jacks once again met up with Creed. This time, he'd be joining them on stage for warmups. Tremonti remembered him as the "kid from Moline." When Jacks took the stage, he was in awe of the size: AllState Arena fit 18,500 fans, almost double the Mark's capacity.
The show itself wasn't smooth, though. In fact, it was the beginning of an end for Creed.
Stapp struggled to stay coherent on stage, fumbling through songs and falling asleep at one point, according to anecdotes shared by fans online. Many assumed he was under the influence of drugs, alcohol or both. Some fans at the show even filed a lawsuit against Creed, though it was dismissed.
Jacks was hesitant to share details from his side of the Rosemont story. There is not any footage of the show available online.
What we do know is that Creed played just a few more shows after that gig before breaking up in 2004. They reunited again in 2009, before going on a hiatus once more for almost all of the 2010's.
In the annals of music history, Creed — and post-grunge peers like Nickelback and 3 Doors Down — became the brunt of jokes. The rise of blogs and social media in the '00s made memes and music ridicule a whole lot easier.
Many critics jokingly called the genre "butt rock." But that didn't stop them from selling records.
Nickelback, for one, played the Quad-Cities many times throughout the '00s, each time attracting a huge crowd. They even played The Mark in 2002, just a month before Creed did.
Jacks said he gets strange looks when he tells people the Creed guitarist is his hero. He thinks the reputation is unfair to the band's legacy.
"They were the biggest rock band in the world for a while there," he said. "The numbers don't lie."
Jacks had his own sights set on rock stardom once.
"If I can't be in a band, I want to be a graphic artist," a teenage Jacks told the Dispatch in a 2002 feature story, adding that he was just as wowed by meeting Creed's visual artist as he was Tremonti.
The plan worked out.
Jacks played in a band as an adult and met his wife on the road. After he decided to settle down, he picked up work as a graphic designer. Now, he works in social media and marketing for a local media company.
Creed, on the other hand, is seeing a resurgence and reunited in 2023. Stapp appeared in a Paramount+ Super Bowl commercial this February and has been open about his sobriety.
Even through the band's hiatuses, Jacks' fandom has stayed strong. He plans to see them twice next year.
At one of Tremonti's solo shows in Peoria in 2018, Jacks was there and, once again, hung out backstage. When the guitarist recognized him in the crowd, Jacks remembers Tremonti asking one thing.
"Are you the guy that broke up our band in Chicago?"
This story is part of a series called "Timeless Tickets," where we're aiming to find the most notable concert in the Quad-Cities, every year from 1960 to today. Do you have a story or photo to share from an iconic local show? Send it to entertainment reporter Gannon Hanevold at .
المواضيع: Music