Incubus

Rescheduled from April of this year due to guitarist Mike Einziger sustaining a hand injury (Carpal tunnel syndrome), these dates have some pretty eager fans waiting to watch their favourite band. Opening for them are Puggy, a band comprising of British, Swedish and French members.

It is acoustic rock; occasionally the acoustic guitar is helped along with a variety of distortion pedals. Singer Matthew Irons does well to belt out some impressive vocals over his complicated guitar melodies, and drummer Egil ‘Ziggy’ Franzen even has a shot at vocals.

The songs tend to sound a little cheesy, not helped by the band encouraging you to sing along,but they are a likeable support act, and not a bad sound for just the three of them.

Starting a little late, for which they apologise (twenty minutes added onto the last five months shouldn’t make that much difference) the Californian quintet are playing mainly songs from their new album ‘Light Grenades’. The sound has changed yet again as with the majority of their albums; the funk has disappeared to make way for a lighter sound. ‘Quicksand’ and ‘Kiss To Send Us Off’ are promising starters; though the latter has a similar riff to ‘Megalomaniac’, which causes a surge in excitement from the crowd when played later in the set.



There’s no denying that many people in this room, female and male, admire Brandon Boyd. I struggle to see the attraction, especially in that overly long grandad vest, though his vocals sound as good live as on the albums. The stage is covered in patterned carpets, with the odd spotlight focusing on the main player at the time. This happens to be guitarist Mike Einziger because of his abilities on the guitar, but occasionally bassist Ben Kenney gets a look in (though he reminds me that this is still a job for them, by looking at his watch mid set! Have you somewhere better to be?).

Turntablist Chris Kilmoreand drummer Jose Pasillas are happy to sit at the back, whilst most of the attention is on Boyd. Towards the end of the show Boyd holds a couple of strong stage lights in his hands and shines them on his band mates, himself and the crowd. There is little banter, probably a wise thing at arena shows us to the chance of a one way conversation, and to be fair the place is hardly sold out. I think two shows in a smaller venue would have sufficed, but I am not an Incubus follower, and the rearranged dates may have lead to a smaller crowd tonight.



As the encore starts with two good crowd sing-a-longs from the more widespread album ‘Make Yourself’ (‘The Warmth’ and ‘Nowhere Fast’) the show then ends on a slow note, with the sound of Einziger plucking on a Chinese pipato ‘Aqueous Transmission’, a completely different track from their hard rock ways. The sound of crickets as the band leave the stage is a little annoying; being blasted through the huge speakers is probably not what was originally intended by including this mellow sound of wildlife on the album track.

Quicksand
Kiss To Send Us Off
Nice To Know You
Anna-Molly
Pistola
Vitamin
Are You In?
Love Hurts
Drive
Megalomaniac
Sick Sad Little World
Oil And Water
Dig

The Warmth
Nowhere Fast
Aqueous Transmission

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.