The Justice

Media Credit: Sara Brandenburg Singer Stephan Jenkins prowls the stage

Media Credit: Sara Brandenburg The crowd surges at the sound of 3EB's ten-year-old hits

You have to give Third Eye Blind credit for knowing their job. Too often, washed-up bands live with the delusion that their audience actually care about their new material, only reluctantly offering their hits as special treats. Third Eye Blind, however, seem fully aware they only receive their grossly inflated paychecks to play their hits-those ingrained in the collective nostalgia of the Guitar Hero generation by years of relentless radio play. This past Saturday at the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center, as the headliner for Student Events' spring concert, the '90s pop powerhouse sailed through the gamut of sing-along-able favorites and a few forgettable new efforts that served only as segues between the familiar crowd-pleasers. The sound was poor and talent minimal, but for an audience full of drunk high school students pretending to be in college, drunk college students belting their favorite tunes from middle school and a headlining band still basking in the residual glory of 1998, it hardly seemed to matter.

The evening began with a visit from local rock outfit Rouge Heroes, fresh off it's engagement at every bar in the country. Among the singer's charming red armband, relentless chanting of the word fuck and a bastardizing cover of the Beatles' "Dear Prudence," it would be easy to dismiss the set as the worst I have ever seen. Yet about five or six completely indistguishable songs in, I came to the logical conclusion that the entire act was really an ironic put-on, some artistic exploration of what makes a typical talentless bar band reach that higher level of awful. And for that brave piece of performance art, I applaud them.

Once Rogue Heroes had departed, the grateful crowd members eagerly awaited the music of their youth from the champions of the studio-engineered, VH1-projected, three-chord power-pop song. Singer Stephan Jenkins and crew (which at this point only contains one other original member) took the stage to a storm of blinding lights to play their set of equally blinding music. The generally guitarless Jenkins-who resembles a less frightening Bono in stage manner-led his band for an audience full of needless devil horns, crowd surfers and scattered, yet noticeably pervasive children. Many yelled along with the all-too-familiar choruses, ignoring the musical deficiencies, opting instead to wade in a warm pool of nostalgia.

Each song seemed to last at least double the original recorded length, and the often studio-retouched Jenkins didn't so much sing as stumble to keep pace and fit in lyrics no matter what form the melody took. As always, the sound quality in Gosman was pitiful, and the overly amplified bass guitar and bass drum drowned out most of the higher frequencies.

But levying these strictly musical complaints against the concert is probably irrelevant. In a national live music market bursting with acts as talented as they are popular, Student Event's choice to bring Third Eye Blind was clearly made without any intent towards actual musical integrity. Brandeis students did not drop $10 for a night of compelling music but rather for a night where they could drink, get close and yell along with songs so deeply entrenched in their memories that they know all the words 10 years later.

No matter how awful the actual performance was, the nostalgia factor stayed intact, and to most, that's all that mattered. For this purpose, Third Eye Blind was the perfect band. Their complete lack of musicianship, stage presence and innovation were compensated for by their forced radio popularity a decade ago. In perhaps the most succinctly summarizing moment of the night, Jenkins politely asked, "Is it all right if we play just one more new song?" A gentle plea, which was met with resounding boos.

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