It’s a beautiful late summer evening in San Francisco on Thursday, 12 September, as Incubus get set to conclude their “Morning View XXIII Tour” here at the Chase Center in the City by the Bay. The alt-rock heroes are riding high on this tour, supporting their Morning View XXIII album release in the spring, a re-recorded version of their 2001 classic that helped propel the band to stardom following 1999’s smash hit Make Yourself LP (which they toured again in 2019.)
Some longtime local fans will recall San Francisco alt-rock station Live 105 putting “Pardon Me” from Make Yourself into heavy rotation in the fall of 2001 after the song’s zeitgeist surged exponentially in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on America. It felt like singer Brandon Boyd had become something of a prophet, which heightened his status as a growing voice of a generation candidate for Gen-X/Millennial music fans. Here was someone who understood “the burdens of the planet Earth, Like gravity, hypocrisy, and the perils of being in 3D, But thinking so much differently…” Incubus released Morning View in October, and the album quickly surged up the charts, debuting at #2 and going platinum by December.
Incubus played San Francisco’s Warfield Theater in November of 2001, delivering a pair of sensational shows that tapped into the nation’s heightened angst that autumn to make lifelong fans of those who were catching the group in action for the first time. The video for Morning View single “Wish You Were Here” was even banned that fall because MTV deemed a scene of band members running away from eager fans to be too similar to images of people running away from the World Trade Center on 11 September.
Morning View was a more personal album for Boyd; who would relate that it was essentially a breakup record for him? But some of the lyrics also contained more universal themes, along with electrifying guitar crunch, powerful grooves, and some sublimely psychedelic tracks as well. Morning View had the feel of an alt-rock masterpiece, and this tour in 2024 backs up the album’s classic status. The years 2020-2021 turned out not to be a great time for an anniversary project. However, the band reconvened at the Malibu beach house, where they had recorded the album to perform it for a live stream. After thinking about a release of that live set, Incubus decided to go deeper.
“It’s potentially a dangerous assignment to try and re-record it. But I love a good creative challenge, especially if it’s fraught with landmines. It doesn’t make me want to back away from it. It makes me want to kind of lean into it a little bit more,” Boyd told Rolling Stone earlier this year. He explained that “the embellishments that we made were things that have evolved out of live performances of the songs. So the versions on Morning View XXIII are very true to the originals, but it’s almost as if we did real recordings of the versions we’ve been playing live of them.”
As the 9.00pm showtime at Chase Center nears, the arena fills in. Tickets were going cheap on secondary market sites earlier in the week, but there seems to be a large walkup crowd. The music on the PA sets an alt-rock throwback vibe with tunes like “Summerland” from King’s X and Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You”.
Opening the show with Morning View delivers three straight hard-hitting rockers with “Nice to Know You”, “Circles” and “Wish You Were Here”. The group’s precision intensity on “Circles” is nothing short of incendiary, with the audience rocking out and singing along with spirited allegiance on the “Hey, what would it mean to you” chorus lines. This is no tame sit down crowd, this audience came to rock! The energy level is off the charts as guitarist Mike Einziger, drummer Jose Pasillas, bassist Nicole Row, and DJ Craig Kilmore sync in like a force of nature.
There’s an even bigger singalong on the smash hit psychedelia of “Wish You Were Here”, as Incubus rocks out while Boyd sings of counting UFOs at the beach and signaling them with his lighter for a moment of happiness that’s mirrored back by the audience singing with him on the chorus. It soon becomes clear how lit this audience is as they continue to sing along on nearly every song, including moodier deep cuts like “Just a Phase” and “11 am”, both of which receive huge cheers of recognition upon the opening notes. The haunting melody of “11 am” seems to mesmerize the entire arena to demonstrate what a strong album Morning View is, one of those rare and special collections where every tune fits together in a seamless sonic tapestry.
Charismatic new bassist Nicole Row fits in almost like she’s always been there, adding backing vocals and dynamic bass lines that honor the songs while also elevating the vibe further. “She’s an incredible musician. She’s just effortless on a guitar. Watching her take on this challenge was really wonderful. I think people are really going to like her on this album, but also witnessing her become part of this band family,” Boyd said to Rolling Stone regarding Row’s contributions to Morning View XXIII. Indeed, she’s been winning raves on tour throughout the year.
Incubus mixes it up midway through the performance of the album with a trio performance of the usually hard rocking “Blood on the Ground” featuring Boyd backed by just Row and Einziger on acoustic guitar. Then it’s just Boyd and Einziger for a bluesy duo performance of “Mexico”. When the rest of the band returns to the stage, Boyd thanks the audience “for listening to this album for the last couple of decades, what a beautiful thing…” He speaks to feelings of hurt and confusion in his life at the time since it was a breakup album but notes how “Music allows us to transform those emotions into something positive and universal and lovely… So it’s amazing to be happy about it.”
This leads into a peak moment with “Warning”, one of the group’s most enduring fan favorites, as a musical catharsis for all that ails this insane world. The audience is singing along to the verses as well as the choruses, on every zeitgeisty lyric like “I suggest we learn to love ourselves / Before it’s made illegal, When will we learn? (When will we learn?) / When will we change? (When will we change?) / Just in time to see it all come down / Those left standing / Will make millions / Writing books on the way / t should have been…” There’s extra audience interaction toward the end, with the audience singing out the backing vocals, and it’s a spine-tingling moment as the message resonates through the decades.
The heady vibe carries over into mid-tempo “Echo”, which sounds gorgeous with its shimmering guitar parts and laser beams that make it feel like Incubus is taking the audience on a mystical ride through an alt-rock wonderland. Then it’s back to pure rock power on “Have You Ever” as the band crushes the heavy tune with a scintillating attack. Row goes up on the riser with Pasillas to lay down the smoking groove, while Boyd delivers more of his impassioned vocals before turning it back over to the audience to sing another chorus.
“Are You In” is another triumph with its ambient yet infectious laser-infused psychedelia that pulls everyone into a collective groove of ecstatic union. DJ Chris Kilmore stars here as the group’s secret weapon with his nifty samples, enhancing the sound in a timely yet seamless fashion. It sounds like the groove will segue into the Doors’ “Riders of the Storm”, as has often been the case over the years, but Incubus throws a curveball here by moving into Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight” instead. It feels fitting that this is a special tour honoring Morning View.
Boyd and Einziger also team up on a bit of Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, a heartfelt sentiment for their longtime partnership, as an intro into their own harder rocking “Under My Umbrella”. The energy level has been simply amazing throughout the set, including on the ambient Morning View closer “Aqueous Transmission”, which features Einziger on a Chinese instrument called a pipa (an instrument he borrowed from the great Steve Vai for the original recording of the song.) It’s one of the most mystical album closers in rock history, helping to cement the album’s classic status as well as making for a beautiful moment in the live setting.
The record’s conclusion isn’t the show’s end, though, as Incubus rock on for another half hour. “Anna Molly” from 2006’s Light Grenades is a dynamic rocker that re-ignites the show with flair. One of the evening’s most powerful moments follows with “Karma, Come Back” from 2020’s Trust Fall EP. The song’s monster groove sounds like a cross between one of the bluesier jams from Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys project with a Rage Against the Machine tune, generating a new fan favorite in recent years that inspires such furious rocking out that items could fly out of one’s pockets. The song also segues into a bluesy cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together”, an ever inspiring hymn for the rock ‘n’ roll counterculture.
Incubus delivers a soaring climax with “Pardon Me”, as Kilmore gets the audience going again with his skillful scratching in between the hard rocking changes while Boyd alternates between singing the choruses and letting the audience take the lead vocals on “Pardon me while I burst into flames, I’ve had enough of the world, and it’s people’s mindless games.” This generates another spine-tingling moment of rock power catharsis, with Incubus fans singing out against the forces of old and evil that have led to this world gone mad of the late 20th/early 21st century. The audience has been nothing short of totally in it to win it all night, and there’s one more big singalong to follow on the group’s hit song “Drive” that wraps the night with one more inspiring anthem of self-determination. Incubus are at the top of their game and the world is better for it.
