Third Eye Blind’s Spring 2010 Tour

Only half are still in the band... (Photo courtesy of last.fm/Third+Eye+Blind)

I was expecting something totally different: a crowd of people older than 20, empty stares at new material and crazed shouting at the classics.  I guess I was expecting a concert full of people like me.  It ended up being a younger crowd equally enthralled by songs of Ursa Major as Third Eye Blind’s self-titled.  Despite missing most of their original style (and members), did Third Eye Blind really manage to captivate an entirely new generation?

My first thought of the concert was that it was a band trying to squeeze every penny out of previous success – The Crocodile Rock Cafe in Allentown, PA didn’t seem like a gig for anyone hoping to climb the charts.  Singer Stephen Jenkins was up to his ridiculous over the top “showmanship” but the songs sounded like a cover band was playing them.  The bassist looked like Jesus, and nothing like any of the previous bassist from the band, and the guitarist was apparently flown in from Dublin for the tour.  Consequently, the distinct guitar parts in classics like “Wounded” and “Graduate” were unrecognizable or nonexistent.  It was still easy to get lost in their chart toppers, but it was because I was singing along to the album versions in my head, not the live music.

Seeing a band decline isn’t easy.  People get older, and at some point we all have to realize that nothing will ever compare to the rose-tinted memories we have.  Third Eye Blind reached most of our generation, but theirs isn’t a story that ends like U2–selling out stadiums decades later.  Third Eye Blind’s story, for me, ended in Allentown, PA.  Luckily, I can always go back to the beginning with their self-titled album.

Set List
(Third Eye Blind, Blue, Out of the Vein, Ursa Major, Unreleased)

Faster (download)

London

Can You Take Me

Wounded

Camouflage

Never Let You Go

Bonfire

Motorcycle Drive By (download)

Water Landing

Crystal Baller

Graduate

Scattered (download)

Why Can’t You Be

Jumper

Monotov’s Private Opera

Encore:

Slow Motion

About To Break (download)

Semi-Charmed Life

God of Wine