Third Eye Blind

This summer, the San Francisco based modern rock quartet Third Eye Blind, is trying to achieve what the majority of modern rock acts rarely seem to attain. With their current tour, 3EB wants to graduate from playing clubs and small theaters, to the larger amphitheaters. Though the crowds and venues will increase in size, 3EB still wants to put on an intimate production with the look and feel of a small club.

With their self-titled double platinum album and strong support from Top 40 and modern rock radio, according to lead singer / songwriter Stephan Jenkins, the band has been re-energized and inspired to present an even more intimate show. Jenkins says he and his band mates Kevin Cadogan (guitar), Arion Salazar (bass) and Brad Hargreaves (drums), remain even more dedicated than ever to maintaining the deep-seated connection between the group and their fans. “You know what this tour is really all about,” Jenkins said,” is harnessing the energy that we get whenever we’re playing a club and transforming that energy into our show on a bigger stage in a larger venue. There’s really great things about playing in bigger venues. The reality of it for us is that you have this group of people who have a very unique take on their instruments and we just go from there.

The Bonfire Stage will echo those closed down clubs and dilapidated warehouses where we started.

It mirrors our music, depicting inner and outer world with all the light and darkness. And all the friction in-between. On-stage, we have these heavy theater curtains… an empty chair, a closed bar. Everything is ancient luxury, now in disrepair. And somewhere outside of all this,from behind the risers comes the glow of a bonfire. And all the heat we can muster up from the music.” 3EB also plans to introduce an acoustic set into their new show. “The Bonfire stage will actually transform into a club show with part of the audience on-stage with us,” Jenkins said. “So the concert goers should consider this an invitation.

The show we’re touring with works in three acts. It’s a much more theatrical production. The production allows us to change the stage and what the show is. So, we’re really doing three different shows in the concert.

It’ allows us the grandeur that really makes the stage different for our current show.” While on the surface, the step up in venue size, as well as the extravagant stage production seems logical, so far this summer, box office sales of tickets for pop and modern rock concerts have not been all that exciting.

Jenkins realizes the concert market has not been very receptive to many of the one groups inhabiting the modern rock charts these days, so he has worked to make 3EB’s summer tour different from the rest of the modern rock pack. Jenkins believes that concert goers should get their money’s worth whenever they pay to experience a rock show. “A lot of modern rock bands live in concert,’ Jenkins said,” are terrible. They stand there and just stare at their shoes while they’re playing and it makes for a really boring time for everybody in the audience. I hate those modern rock bands who do that. I’d like to kill them all. I just hope they all die. It’s so unfair to the audience.” Jenkins not only has contempt for the modern rock acts, he says he has no use for the bands in his home town either. “Because of where we came from here in San Francisco,”he said,” the music scene is primarily about a bunch of local bands looking at each other and what they’re doing.

By worrying about each other and checking out what the other guy is going to do all the time, it makes the scene very conservative. So once we got signed and were successful with our debut album, these guys in the other bands would come to me and say,’What should we do to make ourselves successful?’ I’d tell them,’For once quit watching everybody else and just go make the music you feel is important to you and go your own way.’ When we made this album, we isolated ourselves from all of that scene and decided that we just really didn’t want to participate in it at all. We didn’t want to play along.”