BUSH-Pop music review: Epicenter festival

Photo: Gavin Rossdale of Bush goes into the crowd of fans at the Epicenter festival.
Earlier on the big stage was Bush, like Eminem another platinum-selling act making a return to live performing after a period of inaction. The reunited quartet opened with “Machinehead,” one of the band’s most recognizable hits, stretching out the opening riff before singer Gavin Rossdale began the harried lyrics: “Breathe in, breathe out….”

In 2010, Bush’s big, crisp grunge riffs are an unexpected novelty, in contrast to the ’90s, when Bush was sometimes lambasted for aping the sounds of Nirvana and others of the era. The band was a dependable hit-maker for much of that decade and later this year will return with a new album, “Everything Always Now.”

With his hair pulled back into a Samaria bun and three strips of orange reflective tape on the wrist of his strumming arm, Rossdale was at times explosive and at times reserved, shouting, “There’s no sex in your violence” during “Everything Zen.”

“It’s difficult to not play the new songs,” Rossdale said during a set built mostly of the familiar. But just as the band was to begin the grinding melody of its new single, “Afterlife,” the singer left the stage to walk along the edge of the barricade, reaching out to fans to get up-close and reacquainted.


-- Steve Appleford

Gavin Rossdale, left, and Corey Britz of Bush perform.


Gavin Rossdale of Bush gets into the crowd.


Corey Britz and Gavin Rossdale of the band BUSH


Epicenter festival
(Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times)

A platinum-selling pillar of grunge in the '90s, Bush returned with a performance at the Epicenter festival on Saturday.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/09/pop-music-review-epicenter-festival.html