I bite my tongue everytime you come around, cuz blood in my mouth beats blood on the ground.
Coheed and Cambria warms it up for Incubus and Morning View. 2024.
It’s been a year of anniversaries of records that have held very near and dear places in my ear over the years. Fortunately bands are taking advantage of the nostalgia and cashing in on touring on these records, Incubus was the latest act to bring to the stage an absolute classic, the 20th anniversary of their smash Morning View and they brought the ever consistent and underrated Coheed and Cambria along for the ride. The 10 date jaunt kicked off in Detroit Rock City on Friday and brought the party to a sold out Little Cesar’s Arena.
Morning View is just Jagged Little Pill for white dudes. Its themes of love, heart break, and some angst coupled with Brandon’s clever lyrics has always made me think to the similarities between the two records. When the album dropped twenty years ago it has hard to not hear any of the singles taking over MTV, VH1, and the airwaves. But for good reason, the album is a journey that always provided myself with the comfort of grandmas cooking.
The band re-recorded the album and put it out earlier this year, while I wasn’t too keen on the new takes, having felt that the vocals felt flat, and lacked the emotional intensity and integrity of the original recordings I was still wicked stoked to see that they were going to be playing the record live. There was some reticence on my behalf at how well they would sound. Brandon having had some septum work done has apparently changed the moxie of his voice. Reddit boards were ripe with talk of how he isn’t the same live anymore.
I finally caught Incubus live after years of always missing them back in 2017 on their 8 tour with Jimmy Eat World. They sounded good for being at Pine Knob, but that was also a show that I had been taking advantage of not driving too, between the excitement of finally seeing one of my favorite bands growing up and over indulging my recollections may have been clouded.
Coheed and Cambria is a band I’ve seen a handful of times over the years, and they deliver every single time. I’ve always kind of slept on them. When Good Apollo came out I had really dug that record, and spent a many late nights with Billy getting drunk and jamming out to their tracks on Rock Band. They have a ton of stuff that I just haven’t dug into, but after I see them play, I tell myself I gotta really dive into their catalog. The live shows are consistent and deliver a good time to the casual fan. Being more familiar with their work would make these sets even better. They played about 45 minutes and held nothing back as they ripped through the set with the blazing ferocity they tend to always bring to the stage. Doing a deep dive is a task that is now on my list. It’s been proven time and time again that they are worth exploring in depth and I shall sleep no more.
Incubus came out at 9:00 and delivered a two hour set that gave me mixed feelings. They saved the hits for the end of the show, promptly kicking into Morning View. I’ll admit that it did feel like it took them awhile to really hit their stride. Relying on the energy of the crowd to get them through the first few tracks. The band sounded good, and Brandon’s vocals were solid, relinquishing any fears of mine that he no longer has it.
At times it felt like they were phoning it in at first, lacking some of the intensity I’ve seen from captured live performances over the years. They finally found their footing though, and ripped through the album, with the crowd singing along to every track, proving just how monumental an album it really is.
When it came time for my personal favorite track, the sheepishly clever and hard hitting Blood on the ground, Brandon introduced it with some mumblings about being mad at someone, with Mike hoisting an acoustic guitar. They went into the cut acoustically, with a mild blues and swing feel to it. I was irate honestly, while it did sound good, I was very disappointed in them deciding that particular song be the one they drastically changed during the performance. It wasn’t broke dude, so why you trying to fix it?
During Are You In? The band transitioned into Phil Collins over rated In the Air Tonight, but it worked incredibly well and brought some quirkiness to the show. Before going into Under My Umbrella they teased a little bit of Rihanna’s Umbrella. Proving that they were there to playing Morning View and The Hits, not specifying which hits would actually be played. A joke the band made later on in the night.
The lights and laser show was impressive shoring up the overall quality of the show. After running through Morning View they launched in the hits section of the gig, wasting no time going into Anna Molly. By this time any rust or illusion of them holding back a bit was out the window. Getting more energetic as the night went on. They played Karma off the Trust Fall album before launching into a solid cover of the Beatles Come Together.
Here’s the deal with Come Together, it goes Gary Clark Jr, Aerosmith, Incubus, then The Beatles as far as versions go. It is not up for debate. A great song, made much better by those who have covered it over the years.
Sick sad Little World was next before they went into Pardon Me, which saw the entire arena sing along with a fiery passion. Fortunately they didn’t forget about the Science album and gave us a taste of the classic Vitamin before going into Stellar. They went off stage for a few minutes before returning to end the night with Dig and the Make Yourself classic Drive.
Overall it was a very solid performance, there were moments of not amazing, but the highlights outshined the midlights and it was a successful kickoff to the tour. I imagine I’ll catch them again, as this show did not sour me on the aging lads. They have such a potent catalog, it’s hard to say they are not worth catching live.
Do yourself a favor and revisit Morning View, or give it a spin if you haven’t treated yourself to this auditory delight. Just make sure you give the original recording a listen and stay away from the reworked version that dropped earlier this year. It’s not bad but lacks the integrity and shear power of the original recordings.
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