Wrong Stage, Wrong Crowd
After almost twenty years in music Incubus are a band known throughout the music world. Whether or not you like rock • you’ve heard of the band and heard at least one of their singles. Yet, for some reason, today the crowd is smaller than it should be. There are less people to see Incubus than there were for Bullet for my Valentine • and by a significant amount. It’s true that Incubus is certainly not the same kind of music as many of the other main stage bands today, but somehow there are still less people than I’d expected.
With a long melodic, funky introduction Incubus launch in to a mixture of songs • reaching “Wish You Were Here” as their third song. There has still been no crowd interaction from the band, no passers-by are being pulled in to the crowd (even if vocalist Brandon Boyd currently looks very much like Johnny Depp dressed as Jack Sparrow) and the chorus barely gets anyone joining in with it. There seem to just be too few Incubus fans here and the band seem to be somewhat put off by that in their performance.
By the time Incubus play through “Anna Molly” and “Circles” the sun has gone in, it’s freezing cold and thick black clouds cover Donington Park. Incubus are musically fine, they’re a great band with years of experience and work extremely well together. Despite all this, today, it’s just not working as well as it should do at Download.
Just before “Drive” the sunshine comes out and Brandon finally addresses the crowd somewhat asking if everyone is having a good time and whether or not the beer is cheap (which gets a very loud boo). “Drive” is certainly better received than many of the other songs • but most likely just as its one of the few highly popular singles that non-fans will also be able to join in with during a brief moment of sunshine.
With “Meglomanic”, “Pricless”, “Are You In”, “Pistola” and “Sad Sick Little World”, which also include some very long bass ramblings, the sun has gone in and are still doing no better • not even Brandon tying his hair back to remove the Jack Sparrow look helps. Incubus play their final song and walk off stage without so much as a goodbye or a single song from their seminal album “S.C.I.E.N.C.E”. A great band, a great set but completely wrong for this day, this stage and this crowd.