Alter Bridge's Creed sting is going, going, gone THE FLINT JOURNAL FIRST EDITION Friday, July 08, 2005 By Doug Pullen JOURNAL COLUMNIST Alter Bridge's Detroit connection can have some nice perks, like performing at Monday's Home Run Derby at Comerica Park, where baseball's All-Star Game will be played Tuesday night. The band - former Mayfield Four singer Myles Kennedy and the three guys from Creed whose name isn't Scott Stapp - will perform a couple of songs during the festivities, some of which will be telecast on ESPN that night. They'll follow it with a show at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Flint's Machine Shop. So what's the connection? Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti is originally from metro Detroit. In fact, the name Alter Bridge refers both to an actual place in the Motor City area and the quartet's desire to distance itself from Creed and all the baggage that goes with being one of the most popular, and loathed, hard rock bands of recent years. As grating as singer Stapp's self-importance could be (and as predictable as some of Creed's music could be), Alter Bridge's debut album, which has topped the 500,000 sales mark since its release last November, is a surprisingly fresh and accessible take on contemporary hard rock. Slowly, singer Kennedy says, the Creed thing is fading. "I think a lot of folks have finally come around on that ," he said last week. "Initially it was really hard for people to do that. The Creed stigma was always there with us. But a long enough period of time has passed now where we've started to find our niche and find our place. That's what we wanted all along." Doors open at 7 p.m. Holly's Frequency 54 and Sour Jane open. Details: (810) 715-2650, www.themachineshop.info.