What if-no tour dates cancelled?

[Toxic34]

As the third part of my new "What if?" series, this one deals one of the most difficult periods in the band's history. As we all know, the extensive tour for Tiny Music was cancelled by Robert and Dean's request and then publicly blamed Scott's addictions for it, and also ordered him to pay the cost of the cancellations. Scott has always insisted that he could have done the dates with a sobriety coach on board, and that the cancellations were only screwing the fans over, and thought it was unfair for him to pay for the cancellations. Anyways, what would have happened if Scott had had his way and the touring period for Tiny Music had not been just the tiny smattering of dates of late '96 and early '97? Would this have had any affect on whether 12 Bar Blues and Talk Show had occurred?

[NickLorenza]

I think that eventually both Talk Show and Scott's solo stuff would have still happened but history just wouldn't have been written quite the same for both projects.  I really feel that if the tour for Tiny Music would have went through at full force that the careers of everyone involved would be much different today.  Tiny Music really was a pivotal point for STP on a few different levels including songwriting, the sound of Scott's voice, overall sound of the instruments, and the band's place in pop culture.  I feel if the tour wouldn't have been cancelled that the album would have gotten better support all around and dare I say could have been even bigger than Purple. 

I was 13 years old in the 8th grade when Tiny Music came out; and I remember just how big of a deal it was to the kids in my class when STP came to the Rosemont Horizon in December of 1996.  STP totally had the momentum going at this point in time but once that tour got cancelled it was like someone let the air out of a balloon.  A lot of people seemed to just move on.  I don't feel the band's overall popularity has ever recovered to being the level it was at before they cancelled that tour.  At least in Chicago anyway.