Incubus, if you are not aware has been making music for over 20 years. My first introduction to the band was back in 1999 when I was attending college. I worked at a local college radio station, and when I went in for my shift one night, I saw that our program director left a bag filled with 50 or more CD’s that had been dropped off for review. I decided to take it upon myself and look through the bag and saw this album called “Make Yourself” from Incubus. I really liked the cover of the album and wanted to see what they sounded like, so I dropped the CD into our studio player and hit play. This is not an over exaggeration at all when I say this, when I heard the first guitar riff of the first song on the album called “Privilege” I got super excited. I immediately took the CD out of the studio player and prepped it to be played over the air waves. Not kidding, I literally heard the first song then started my shift with introducing Incubus to our listeners and played the song “Privilege”. I then searched the studio for other albums from Incubus and found the album “S.C.I.E.N.C.E” which came out in 1997 and loved it, especially the song “New Skin”. Since those early years Incubus has sold 13 million records worldwide with major hits such as “Pardon Me”, “Drive”, “Nice to Know You”, “Wish you were here” and many more.

Now let’s talk about the show!

Incubus was originally scheduled to play at the Ritz Music Venue in Raleigh NC on September 2nd but due to high ticket demand the bands show was moved to a larger outdoor venue called the Redhat Amphitheater which is in downtown Raleigh. Incubus did not have any supporting bands opening for them, so the show started around 8:30am. They opened with “Wish you were here” and everyone in the crowd was passionately signing along with lead singer Brandon Boyd on every note. Incubus has been known in the past for high energetic stage performances but during this tour stop they put on a very calm, relaxed and very chilled out performance. The band themselves did not move around much with Brandon occasionally walking around the stage waiving hello to the crowd. This did not take away from the overall enjoyment of the show at all, instead it felt as if you just happened to stop by their practice studio, grabbed a seat and watched them jam out for over an hour. Again, this did not take away from the performance it was just not what I was expecting. The band sounded great, and they played several of their most well-known hits including “Drive” which the crowd loved. At one point Brandon raised up his microphone and pointed it at the crowd so they could finish certain parts of the song. The overall mood of the show was positive with happy people dancing and singing along with some of their favorite incubus songs. I have enjoyed Incubus for over 20 years and I look forward to seeing what the future brings for this incredibly talented band.

~Lead Photographer and Editor Chris Sturk

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