WHAT A TEMPER!: INCUBUS IN COLORADO

Linkin Park celebrates the recent release of their fifth studio album "Living Things" by headlining on the annual Honda Civic Tour, which also feature Incubus and Mutemath. This is one I wanted to see, primarily for Linkin Park, but also for, surprisingly, Mutmath who I saw in one of the side tents at the Coachella Music Festival in 2010. The surprise for me was that I actually liked Incubus best of all that evening, the event clicking in my head when they performed Megalomaniac.

I had a general admission ticket to the pit area in front of the stage. Lots of young women, lots of screaming all night long, lots of "I love you." A great performance. My legs were aching by evenings end after standing and dancing for about 5 hours.

The camera I was using is still functioning after dropping it on the concrete floor during the Van Halen show in San Antonio!

From Westword: Sometime around the middle part of the last decade, the pop culture zeitgeist moved on from testosterone-driven dude rock that ruled the '90s. Incubus and Linkin Park, two titans of the post-grunge era, never got the memo. Last night, fans witnessed two examples of bands that survived the indie rock takeover and are still in top form. The two bands contrasted heavily in their deliveries: Incubus was a coaxing lover, while Linkin Park was the jilted boyfriend who's gonna burn your house down.

Incubus frontman Brandon Boyd. He slithered and moaned through the band's vast catalog, singing "Nice to Know You" and pleading with the audience between songs, "If you have a heart, help me sing tonight." His shirt came off a few minutes later. The animations on the massive projection screen at the back of the stage, by now an arena rock standard, played vaguely political vids. During "Megalomaniac," images of a Hitler collage were mashed together with some businessman figures with eagle's heads. It looked like an illustrated version of a freshman philosophy student's term paper. But, hey, the crowd seemed to love it.

This was not a night for cynicism. Boyd, perhaps one of the best rock singers of recent memory, oozed sincerity throughout every line of every tune. Except, weirdly enough, the band's biggest hit. "This is the feel-good song... of twelve years ago," Boyd says before launching into "Drive," the 1999 hit that is probably still paying Incubus's bills. You can hardly blame the band; if they've played this song half as many times as even casual radio listeners have heard it, it's no wonder they'd feel less than stoked.

That was the exception, though. "Circles," "If Not Now, When?" and "Kiss to Send Us Off" sounded like desperate, howling pleas, as if this was Incubus's last show of their career. Boyd cooed between songs, "I love the sound of your voices." Is this guy for real? Does he want to make out with us? This suspicion was helped along by the fact that the band, mid-song, broke into a cover of Lionel Richie's mega-superhit "Hello." The ambient noise of the crowd might have muffled the sound of a thousand panties dropping. And then the candelabra came out. Boyd and guitarist Mike Einziger lit some candles, moved a piano into place, poured a glass of red wine and launched into newish track "Promises, Promises."

Read it all here:
http://blogs.westword.com/backbeat/2012/08/review_linkin_park_incubus_denver.php