8 Tour brings Incubus, with Jimmy Eat World, to Jones Beach
The constant breeze was a welcome companion at Wednesday night’s Incubus concert at Jones Beach Theater, with special guests Jimmy Eat World and Judah and the Lion. The alt-rock nu-metal giant’s latest album, 8, was released in April, two years after their last EP, Trust Fall, and six years since their last full-length studio album, If Not Now, When? Fans came out in droves for the Long Island stop on the 8 Tour, which featured a thorough sampling of the new tracks as well as appearances by most of the singles devotees want to hear.
Jimmy Eat World opened their set with “Sure and Certain” off October 2016’s Integrity Blues, the band’s 9th studio album, followed by familiar tunes from the past “Bleed American,” “Big Casino,” “I Will Steal You Back,” “Lucky Denver Mint” and “Futures.”
Next, “Pass the Baby” took an unexpected turn into heavy metal, which paved the way for “Pain.”
“We’ve been a band for a real long time,” vocalist and lead guitarist Jim Adkins said, “and we’re real happy to be here.”
In a more intimate venue, “Hear You Me” might bring an audience to tears, but it loses something without a female vocalist. The slow tempo was short-lived and the band picked things back up again with “Get Right,” which featured traffic imagery on the backdrop to go along with the streetlamps illuminating the stage.
They played “A Praise Chorus” to everyone “standing in the back,” then “Sweetness” for the audience to sing along to and closed with bouncy hit “The Middle,” which even the Bavarian pretzel man couldn’t help dancing to. In fairness, he danced his way through the whole show.
After the sun disappeared and the anticipation of the crowd reached its peak, the headliner opened with “Love in a Time of Surveillance.” Incubus’ Brandon Boyd, Mike Einsiger, Chris Kilmore and José Pasillas have been rocking since 1995 and show no signs of slowing down. Bass guitarist Ben Kenney joined the group in 2003.
They alternated old and new with “Warning,” “Nimble Bastard,” “Anna Molly,” “Glitterbomb” and “Megalomaniac,” which activated the long fixtures dotted with lights like landing strips to the stargate fixed overhead. The stage theatrics switched between holographic planetary graphics to video of the band for a man in the moon effect.
The crowd went nuts for “The Warmth,” the anthem of a very specific subset of a generation, largely present at this concert, then was treated to a Pink Floyd outro on “Wish You Were Here” as the stage glowed red.
After “State of the Art,” the band played mega-hits “Pardon Me,” featuring DJ and keyboardist Chris Kilmore at the turntable, and “Drive,” which garnered a huge response.
They mixed it up again with “Undefeated,” old one “Redefine,” with a brief percussion solo, “Sick Sad Little World,” instigating the requisite moshing and crowd surfing in the pit, followed by “The Original,” which began with notes on an organ and built up to the weight of a finale, but the boys were not done yet.
Once Boyd took his shirt off, as he does at every concert, the show commenced with the hypnotic “Loneliest,” only to pick back up again with “No Fun,” move into the otherworldly instruments-only “Make No Sound in the Digital Forest” and end with “Nice to Know You,” accompanied by captivating geometric designs mirroring Boyd’s elaborate tattoos.
The well-rounded set finally concluded with an encore of the mellow “Aqueous Transmission.” Einziger plucked at the strings of a pipa, a Chinese instrument that doesn’t turn up at many rock concerts, but left an impression at this one.
On a warm night at the peak of summer on the edge of the bay, Incubus put on the rock show everyone came to out see.
Catch Incubus, Jimmy Eat World and Judah and the Lion at BB&T Pavilion in Camden, NJ, tonight. For more tour dates, visit www.livenation.com. For a listing of upcoming shows at Northwell Health at Jones Beach Theater, visit www.jonesbeach.com.
