Weezer, Beck, Arcade Fire, Bloc Party and More Highlight KROQ's 'Inland Invasion'

Hard to believe summer is already over! In Southern California, land of no weather, you’d only know it by the monstrous outdoor rock concert season winding down for another year. The end of herding into big outdoor marathons, with the alcoholics all huddled in beer garden lines missing the music, while the rock addicts (myself in the latter category) push and shove in the dust to get the best position in front of the stage. After this we’ll have to go back inside dark cavernous clubs for our local fix of new rock.

The last alternative rock mega-concert of summer was KROQ’s Inland Invasion at Hyundai Pavilion of Glen Helen in Riverside, on a sunny Saturday, September 17. The fifth year of the annual show aptly titled for invading the Inland Empire, once again did not disappoint. A group of bands from KROQ’s alt rock play lists, the line up this year seemed to focus on several bands huge in the UK that are starting to make their mark a year later in the US, with some local staples thrown in for good measure.

Kasabian, new psychedelicists from the UK was the first band, and stuck in traffic, we missed them. The Bravery from New York, with their update of 70s dance synth, started to draw the crowd to the stage as people piled in. Bloc Party, who by now has taken the US by storm finally after being one of the most popular bands in the UK for a couple of years was up next. Kele Okereke, the lead singer (pictured), undeniably charismatic, got the crowd moving. Their sound is in the Killers, Franz Ferdinand vein, but sharpened into a super taut dance beat far more explosive than either.

Arcade Fire, consistent crowd pleasers from Canada, played their signature ‘big sound’, keeping it fresh by having band members switch from instrument to instrument. Beck played his roots rock R&B blend, highlighted by a near acoustic version of ‘Do You Realize’ the breathtaking heartstring puller from his days of touring with Flaming Lips.

Weezer, big name favorites, hit the stage to screaming fans that had waited several years to hear them live if they missed their blistering set at Coachella this spring. The band that created “emo” single-handedly belted out their new hit single ‘Beverly Hills’, which is reminiscent of their more subtle and brilliant ‘Sweater Song’ from almost a decade ago. Also from their new cd, ‘We are All on Drugs’ was an anthem too catchy to resist. The set ended, and the loyal fans were screaming for an encore, so Rivers Cuomo did one last acoustic song from the back of the orchestra pit while the stage was being set up for Oasis, also a UK favorite. Cuomo’s lone strumming of the summer favorite, perhaps still Weezer’s most popular song, ‘Island in the Sun’, was fitting for the last faraway notes of summer after a full season of raw deafened eardrums.