It's a tribute to just how trendy the hybridazation of pop has become that a band like 311 can draw on as many as four or five genres at once and comes away sounding exactly the way you expect a commercial alternative rock band to sound in an age of one world, one music, one record collection.
They hit the stage rapping to heavy guitars last night at the Coca-Cola Star Lake Ampitheatre, treating the crowd of 9,849 to a block of "Hive", "Freak Out", and "Misdirected Hostility".
It was all Red Hot Chili Peppers without an actual tune to hang a groove on until they dipped into their title track from their latest effort, "Transistor." It's got an odd beat that you can't really dance to (at least, not at first), but the song is a well-deserved hit boasting some of the band's most accessible hooks, from the opening riff to the slow reggae ending.
It's hard to imagine Nick Hexum, a white guy, pick up and Jamacian accent from parents and friends growing up in suburban Nebraska. Still, it was pretty effective for putting the newer, more reggae-inspired material over. He credits the Clash with having turning him to reggae as a child, and it showed on the two most intriguing cuts they played from the new album, "Light Years" and "Prisoner."
"All Mixed Up", a standout from the band's self-titled breakthrough, built from a Red Hot Chili Peppers funk-guitar groove to a lazy feel-good chorus as a disco ball dropped from the ceiling and splashed the crowd with streams of light. A heavier hit from their last album, "Down," drew the biggest response of the evening.
The set was a mix of hip-hop, metal, disco, funk, and arena rock (on the frum solo anyway). There was even a point at which the guitarist, Timothy J. Mahoney, appeared to be channeling Jerry Gacria. There wasn't a whole lotta soloing going on, though Mahoney and Hexum did combine for a cool-twin guitar lead on another reggae-cut from the new one, "Beautiful Disaster."
Hexum didn't really have much to say, but when he talked, he knew just how to whip the crowd into a frenzy, inviting them all to jump up to the beat together.
De La Soul, appearently one of the few acts in rap to care if you understand more than a handful of words at a concert, opened the show with a set that took the 311 crowd on a pyschedelic trip from the trio's 1989 Top 40 single, "Me, Myself, and I" to their latest album, "Stakes is High."
At times they sang, but mostly they rapped about ego trips, celluar phones, and vibrations.
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