Blast from the Past: Third Eye Blind come to town

When a band that had its heyday about 10 years ago rolls into town, sells out a decent sized club and draws booming applause for nearly every song, there’s one question that should shoot into any discerning fan’s mind — are we actually enjoying the music or just bathing in soothing nostalgia?


Well, judging from Third Eye Blind’s set in Greensburg’s Palace Theater last night, the answer is a complicated one.


Sure, the crowd of mostly drunk late-twenties bros (many of whom refused to stop screaming for the band to play “Jumper” even after the song was played) seemed genuinely wet-their-pants excited when the San Francisco band busted out late 90s hits like “Graduate,” “Never Let You Go” and, of course, “Semi-Charmed Life,” but the tracks from the upcoming Ursa Major album only saw lukewarm responses.


Is that because the crowd really came just for the hits and not to hear something new? Probably, as could be expected, but only time and the records’ release will tell. My guess is that, as has been Third Eye Blind’s album trend, Ursa Major will go largely unnoticed, forcing the band to continue touring behind decade-old hits for at least another half a decade.


And yet, while all this sounds like Blind bashing, the truth is the band busted out a seriously rousing set — post-grunge rock god pandering of front man Stephen Jenkins aside — of familiar, comfortable radio rock staples and the requisite non-single crowd favorites. Nostalgia or not, the sold-out crowd, this reviewer included, belted out every note.


After a reverb-drowned walk-on, Third Eye Blind launched “Wounded,” one of the band’s better, bigger choruses from its second album and the kicking “Graduate,” one of the five hit singles off the band’s eponymous debut. So far so good.

But when Jenkins led the band in a string of unreleased tracks from the new album, the sing-along, ‘I remember this song!’ sentiment of the crowd was lost — especially among the dudes who could barely stand, let alone get into the groove of an unfamiliar jam.


Jenkins didn’t seem to notice.


“This place is filled with bats and ghosts. I feel like a vampire ready for fresh blood,” he said of both the gothic Palace Theater and the crowd’s energy — both of which were impressive, and matched, in earnest, by the band’s performance.


Third Eye Blind were always one of the more serious late 90s alt-rock bands (and so much better than, say, The Verve Pipe) and, a decade later, the group is still chugging along like it wants to save the world. Or at least wax poetic about doing so. And for the most part, Jenkins and crew pull it off. Quotable tunes like the haunting “God of Wine” and “Motorcycle Drive-By” were played as the mini-epics that they are; the slinky, mostly-acoustic “I Want You” was even sexier than on record.


But barefoot with painted toenails and prone to outstretched-arms crowd-embracing, Jenkins remains in the Ed Kowalczyk (Live) school of spiritual-via-lyrics-about-sex-and-drugs front men. And somehow, his stage character is passable. But it’s when the band’s music tries to match Jenkins’ sprawl that things suffer.


Was a three-minute drum solo in the middle of “Jumper” necessary? Definitely not.


We dig Third Eye Blind for tight, four or five minute packages of sincere (and sincerely affecting) rock gems with glistening choruses, not faux psychedelic guitar and drum meandering. When the band stuck to its core of emotional pop rock, it hit all the right spots — especially for the college bros who know every word of “Semi-Charmed Life” and have no idea it’s about drug addiction.


And when those bros all joined in a group hug during “Slow Motion,” nostalgia or not, Third Eye Blind was doing exactly what it came to do.