If crowd surfing is any indication of success, then last Saturday’s Third Eye Blind concert was one of the most successful in recent memory. The seminal 1990s band played to roughly 2,500 fans in Chadwick Court on February 9, 2008, in a concert planned by the Senior Council Activities Committee and paid for by the Student Senate. Senior Wes Anderson enjoyed the concert. “I think it was the best concert in four years here,” Anderson said. “They were very entertaining. It seemed this concert, the crowd was more into it.”
Guitarist Tony Fredianelli sat down with The Bachelor and told the story of how the band formed. “[Lead singer] Stephan [Jenkins] had been trying to put together a band in San Francisco. At the time, he was in a band called Punk and Zen, a hip-hop kind of a band.
He wanted to put together this band, Third Eye Blind. He was working for a long time in San Francisco trying to put this band together.” The first show was in 1993, according to Mr. Fredianelli. When the self-titled debut in 1997 hit, though, things blew up for the band. “Stephan always knew it was going to be huge,” Fredianelli said. “I’m sure in his mind, he though ‘Well, this is what I deserve.’ He’s got that ego, which makes him a good front man, that’s something you’ve got to have.”
The band opened the show with their hit, from 1999’s Blue, “Never Let You Go.” They played other hits, such as, “Semi-Charmed Life,” and, “Jumper.” They also played material from their latest asyet-unreleased record, which – according to Mr. Fredianelli – is in progress, with Mr. Jenkins still working on the lyrics. There was, however, a bit of a space between the first well known song and their more familiar material. Junior Joe Barriga commented on that delay. “I thought that they took a little too long to get to the songs everybody knew,” Barriga said.
The concert appealed to students who were not necessarily Third Eye Blind fans going into the show, like Jordan Extine ’09. “I thought the concert was pretty good, actually,” Extine said. “Third Eye Blind is not my favorite band by far. I actually only knew a few songs going into it. But I thought they were very good entertainers, with they way they presented themselves on stage and with their songs. Besides that, I came away liking them a bit more.”
Mr. Fredianelli also spoke about playing the songs everyone knew. “It’s all in the crowd,” he said, “It won’t matter what song it is, there will always be something different to add to it, play a little different part, it’s all about the energy of the crowd.”
During a brief break between songs, Mr. Jenkins announced that the band is in the process of recording a live album, and the additional microphones in Chadwick Court were part of that process. The crowd roared its approval of the idea.
The band came back for several encore songs, which was met with approval from the crowd. “Although the last three encore songs were a bit much, they were good,” Extine said.
During the encores, though, there was an altercation outside Chadwick between several security guards and a concertgoer. Despite that, the 2,500-strong crowd seemed to enjoy the concert and the break from the semester.