Live Review: Incubus, Ecca Vandal

The frantic diversity of Ecca Vandal's debut album came as a welcome surprise and tonight her live show delivers on all that promise. She commands the stage with an intense presence and her band sound massive, frequently busting out monstrously heavy riffs throughout the set. Songs like Price Of Living and Future Heroine kick the crowd into action and by the time Vandal departs she has well and truly made an impact, leaving many in the audience looking wide-eyed and dazzled.

Incubus last played here at Brisbane's most sublime venue just over a decade ago. That night, Riverstage was host to all the wild mania of the second touring Soundwave festival, but this time the Californian five-piece have it on their own terms.

Their latest long-player 8 has flown under the radar somewhat. But that should come as no big surprise, really. With the sole exception of instrumental track Make No Sound In The Digital Forest, the album's rather direct approach has offered up little in the way of subtlety or progression and the result comes across a little too much like Incubus playing by numbers. But it's here in the live arena that this band have always been strongest and tonight Incubus prove themselves more than capable of impressing after all these years.

Opener Glitterbomb feels much more animated in this setting, launching things off with a dazzling energy. From here on the new material is strategically scattered among a selection of classics that spans the breadth of their LPs, although they do overlook their debut Fungus Amongus and 2011's oft-overlooked If Not Now, When?. Circles is dealt next and it's so good that we wonder whether they should've saved this one for later. The fact that they morph the closing riff into a Melvins-style doom outro only adds more weight to this suspicion. But, of course, they've still got a few good cards left up their sleeves.

Anna Molly, Megalomaniac and Pardon Me all sound as vibrant as ever, each song getting the audience up and singing along to every line. Paper Shoes brings the crowd to a bit of a standstill, but we're soon united in song again, this time to sing a disjointed chorus of Happy Birthday to "Ben/bass player". It feels a little awkward that many fans in the crowd still don't know Ben Kenney's name after 15 years in the band but, hey! It's the thought that counts. Sick Sad Little World provides the pivotal mid-set jam, complete with a spinning kaleidoscope of psychedelic visuals. And the classics just keep rolling on in with Nice To Know You, Stellar and Talk Shows On Mute; the latter morphing into a brilliant cover of Need You Tonight by INXS. Vitamin seems to be the song most wanted within the moshpit this evening and the band finally deliver the ecstatic riffs, returning to the frenzied funk of their earlier years, and this song is the only taste of SCIENCE on offer tonight. Restoring the calm via Wish You Were Here, Incubus close their main set with a powerful outro of Pink Floyd's original song of the same name.