As an adolescent I grew up during music’s grunge rock era.

During that period of my life, my teenage angst led me to believe that grunge bands were the next group of musicians that would preserve the spirit of rock ‘n’ roll and launch a new era of great rock bands. But I was wrong and it was not long before the genre was pronounced dead in the mid-1990s that I shed the early teen fad to explore new avenues of expression.

Nonetheless, when I heard grunge rock legends the Stone Temple Pilots were coming to the Glens Falls Civic Center I leaped into action – securing the proper press credentials in order to cover the show.

I arrived at Tuesday evening’s concert to find that my name once again failed to make the press list – an incident that has now happened twice in the last two weeks. But I assure you the new staff running the Civic Center from Global Spectrum Management was doing a terrific job as Marketing Director Jonathan Frost escorted me to the press box – no questions asked.

However, my feelings toward the new management group quickly changed as I found myself confined to a cement loft tucked between the rafters and arena seating – making it hard for me to truly experience the show in all its forms.

I was told by one of the other reporters that when he inquired about receiving floor tickets it was explained to him that he was not there as a fan, but as a reviewer – a common misconception by marketers who know as much about journalism as I know about antique wall paper – which I can assure you is absolutely nothing.

Nonetheless, I sat quietly in the press box – twiddling my thumbs while opening act The Secret Machines performed below. Their set was so loud that the sound just bounced off the arena’s cement walls making it hard to even tell what the band was playing and even harder to give an honest review of their show.

Although I am exiled from the seating below, I made the best of my situation – observing the people as they slowly filled the arena’s floor and seats. Time wasted away as the band’s scheduled start time of 9 p.m. quickly turned into 9:30, when the arena lights finally went down – leaving a lone blue light to illuminate the stage.

Lead singer Scott Weiland appeared from backstage and slowly approached the microphone with his hands raised in the air.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, but we just had a political conversation backstage,” he said. “Because we are now the mayors of this city until the end of the show, so you better be on your best behavior and most of all just rock ‘n’ roll!”

His opening remarks were in regard to an act of good will by Glens Falls Mayor Roy Atkins who honors a majority of the bands playing at the venue by making them mayors of the city for the day.

The rap was followed by the opening licks of one of the bands most popular songs “Big Empty.”

The song was a great way to kick off the night’s performance and the crowd responded with a roar of delight and a raucous chant of “STP.”

My own excitement for the show’s opener quickly faded as the realization that being stuck in a press box was no way for anyone to experience a concert – even if they were on assignment. I exited the booth and made my way down from the press box where I quickly mixed in with a group of fans and snuck my way onto the floor.

The crowd was made up of an assortment of characters that ranged in age from their mid 20s to late 30s – a demographic that shows not so much the band’s, but the genre’s failure to transcend age groups.

I mingled around the assorted crowd of leftover grunge addicts, while the band continued on with their set that offered fans a dose of songs from each of their five studio albums highlighted by crowd favorites like “Plush,” “Creep” and “Sex Type Thing.”

Weiland put on his usual high energy act, eventually ending up shirtless straddling himself between the drum set’s platform and the stage’s floor for most of the band’s two-hour show. His stage presence and ability to keep fans entertained could still be seen, but he lacked the ability to truly capture the attention of the fans throughout the duration of the set.

In 2000, I had the opportunity of seeing the band perform on a double bill with the Red Hot Chili Peppers at SPAC. That night, Weiland’s energy was unparalleled, which can be exemplified from the fact that he passed out on stage during a performance of “Dead and Bloated.” The band’s high energy assortment of songs proved to be too much for the Chili Peppers that night as the group struggled to find the right set list to live up to STP’s opening set.

However, years of drug abuse and the fact that the genre of grunge was mainly geared toward teenagers makes it hard for a band of 40-something year-old men to truly convey the rebelliousness of the music to their fans – and most likely why only about 2,500 people showed up for the show.

Nonetheless, the performance had its fair share of highlights, especially the band’s encore, which featured Weiland screaming the lyrics to “Dead and Bloated” through a megaphone and ending with a high energy “Trippin on a hole in a paper heart.”

The conclusion of the show marked the end of an era of music that once dominated my life and maybe even helped develop my love affair for music that continues on today. As the band stood on stage embracing each other and thanking the crowd who praised them from below, I couldn’t help but think that if nothing else the show helped to reinforce why grunge music failed to endure and transcend generations of future music fans like some of the legendary rock groups of the 60s and 70s were able to. Still the music will live on in the minds and the hearts of those who grew up listening to it because our taste and opinions on music will continue to change, but our memories of who we once were will last forever.