Since taking America by storm in 1994 with their debut album Sixteen Stone, Bush continued to find success through their breakup in 2002 and retained enough fans to reunite again in 2010. Though they achieved great notoriety in the states, they never really caught on in their home country of England. Having initially been described as “post-grunge,” a style of music incorporating the sounds and aesthetic of grunge, but with a more commercially acceptable tone, and as Bush has continued to release more material their sound has become much more of the pop-rock vein. Currently touring on their newest album, Black and White Rainbows, Bush played a high energy set full of old classics and new material to the near capacity crowd at Stubb’s in Austin on Sunday night.
As if to acknowledge that they know where their bread is buttered, Bush opened their set with their breakthrough single “Everything Zen” instead of taking the more traditional approach of playing an new song at the beginning. In fact, through the course of the night only three songs from their new album found a place on the set list. This might be a blessing since even though new songs like “Mad Love” and “Peace-S” sounded musically tight, lyrically the songs toed the line of cheesy. It wouldn’t take a keen observer to notice that the audience was mainly made up of fans in their 30’s and 40’s who mainly just wanted to hear material from the first three albums. Gavin Rossdale did not disappoint and even went as far as walking through the crowd during “Little Things”.
While the main set was divided between newer, post-formation songs and old favorites like “The Chemicals Between Us” and “Alien,” the encore was what kept the crowd there until the end. After returning to the stage guitarist Chris Traynor started blasting out the unforgettable beginning riff to “Machinehead”, which had the crowd going wild. This was followed by an excellent version of R.E.M.’s “The One I Love” before the rest of the band left Gavin on stage for “Glycerine”. Due to some guitar issues, “Glycerine” became an a cappella sing-a-long for a few verses before a tech put a new guitar in Rossdale’s hands. The night ended appropriately with “Comedown” which also found the crowd singing along, loudly.
All in all, it was a fairly impressive show from Rossdale & Co. Gavin’s vocals are still as good as they were twenty years ago and his energy and showmanship kept the crowd engaged even through the new material. While the newer material sounds pretty good musically, Gavin’s lyrics leave a lot to be desired and thankfully the greater part of the night was filled with older material. While fans can’t expect nostalgia bands to stop putting out new material, Bush thankfully did not try to oversell the new songs as many older bands with declining fanbases often tend to do.
Photo by Merrick Ales courtesy of Stubb’s BBQ
