So, yeah, for the New Year’s ball drop, Phish staged a Broadway-level production of a concept album that the band hadn’t played in full in almost 30 years. But, in Columbus, OH, at that same time, the lovable, headbanging, progtronic dorks of the jam scene Dopapod ushered in 2024 with a loving rendition of “Higher” by Creed.
Dopapod celebrated New Year’s with a three-night run at Columbus’ Woodlands Tavern, a familiar tour stop for the band with a stronghold of Midwest fans. That comfort was on display throughout Sunday’s two-set closer, which saw another unexpected cover debut when Dopapod took its first crack at Drake‘s “Passionfruit”. The cover from the global hip-hop star came in the middle of a trio of covers that closed out the first set starting with Medeski, Martin & Wood‘s “Strance of the Spirit Red Gator” and ended with a stellar debut of King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard‘s “Rattlesnake”.
With the clock winding down on 2023, Dopapod returned to the stage to open set two with an on-the-nose “Time is Funny” ahead of “Bats in the Cave” which led into the traditional “Auld Lang Syne” ball drop song. As guitarist Rob Compa rang out the final notes, he beckoned the crowd, “Are you ready to feel alive Columbus, Ohio? Are you ready to feel more alive than you’ve ever felt in your entire life?! Are you ready?!” To which keyboardist Eli Winderman responded, “I think we need to go a little bit higher,” before Compa fired off the riff to Creed’s 1999 Top 10 hit. As Winderman really went for the Scott Stapp impression, particularly on any word that ended in -r, the wave of realization began to wash over the crowd before the concert broke out into a fully nostalgic singalong.
Shortly thereafter in the show, Compa took to the microphone to explain why the band covered Creed (as if any explanation was necessary). Utilizing Winderman’s autumn vocal effect, Rob relived his Creed-loving adolescence in a story styled after comedian Kevin James Thornton‘s “Back in the ’90s” Instagram posts.
“So when I was in the 8th grade, back in the ’90s, we had a school dance at my cafeteria and I was a really big Creed fan and I owned two of their CDs,” Compa willfully admitted to the sold-out crowd. “And I went to the dance, and I brought the Creed CDs, and I went up to the DJ and I asked him ‘Can you play my Creed CDs for everybody,’ and he said ‘No way,’ and he made me put them away.”
Related: Did You Know: Goose’s Peter Anspach Once Got “Fired” From The Dopapod Road Crew [Videos]
The second half of set two contained considerably less Creed, none to be exact. However, when Dopapod returned to the stage for the encore to finish out the three-night run, the band wasn’t done with Creed just yet and reprised “Higher” before the original “Vol 3 #86” closed the run.
Compa later highlighted the absurdity of the band’s New Year’s Eve stunt when compared with Phish’s in a since-deleted post.
Dopapod’s “Higher” cover is emblematic of the larger Creed resurgence—or Creedsurgence, as no one has called it—currently happening in society. There are now many people who did not grow up hearing Creed in every supermarket in the early ’00s and are just discovering the band’s generic, vaguely religious music, largely through TikTok. Footage of the band’s 2001 halftime performance at a Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game has repeatedly gone viral on social media, with Google Analytics reporting more searches for the band than ever. In other words, Creed’s popularity has seldom been “Higher”.
Check out full-show video of the Dopapod New Year’s Eve show, with the Creed “Higher” cover starting around 2:27:40 (“Rattlesnake” starts at 1:31:40).
Dopapod – Woodland’s Tavern – Columbus, OH – 12/31/23 – Full Video
Setlist: Dopapod | Woodland’s Tavern | Columbus, OH | 12/31/23
Set One: Numbers Need Humans, Sonic, Zonk, Like a Ball, Nuff -> Strance of the Spirit Red Gator*, Passionfruit^, Rattlesnake%
Set Two: Time is funny, Bats in the Cave > Auld Lang Syne, Higher#, French Bowling > Autotune Creed Story+ > French Bowling -> 2 Somebodies > Onion Head > Super Bowl
Encore: Higher reprise, End it on the Yeah -> Vol 3 #86
*Medeski Martin and Wood cover
^Drake/Cornelius cover
%King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard cover
#Creed cover
+Rob told a story about being a creed fan in middle school through Eli’s autumn vocal effect, in the style of comedian Kevin James Thornton’s “back in the 90s” Insta posts
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