The Final Night Of The Summer Gods Tour Featuring RA RA RIOT, JIMMY EAT WORLD & THIRD EYE BLIND Comes to Irvine’s FivePoint Amphitheatre!

This past Saturday (8/3) was the final night of the 35-city Summer Gods Tour featuring Ra Ra Riot and co-headliners Jimmy Eat World and Third Eye Blind. Held in Irvine, California at the FivePoint Amphitheatre, this tour produced by Live Nation, kicked off on June 14th at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, with dates in Chicago, Atlanta, Houston and more.

“The most scintillating, inspiring collective moments of my life have been outdoors in the summer exploding with music,” says Third Eye Blind front-man, Stephan Jenkins. “Those sensations travel from when I was a little kid and rock music was brand new to our last Summer Gods tour, when everything is magically new again. I seek to create that exact blissed-out state of aliveness on tour this summer.“ Touring in the summer “feels like more of a festival thing, because Third Eye Blind takes a lot of time in picking out the bands to play with us,” Jenkins tells iHeartRadio’s on-air personality, Andrew Harms, in an exclusive interview that ran earlier this summer across iHeartMedia’s network of Alternative stations.

“We couldn’t be more excited to spend our 25th summer as a band touring the country of our birth to play music for our American fans!” says Jimmy Eat World, in a statement.  “Thanks to Third Eye Blind for inviting us to be a part of this amazing tour. We can’t wait to hang out with our fans as well as making some new friends!”

The New York-based band Ra Ra Riot got the night started with a short but sweet set of some of their most well-known songs including “Bad Times,” “Absolutely,” “Flowers” and “Water.” In just a few short days on August 9th, the group will be releasing their fifth full-length album called “Superbloom” via Rob the Rich Recordings/Caroline Records. 

Connect With Ra Ra Riot Here – Website

Next up was Jimmy Eat World who brought a full-on dance party for their entire set. The band is made up of Jim Adkins (lead guitar, lead & backing vocals), Zach Lind (drums, percussion, programming), Tom Linton (rhythm guitar, backing & lead vocals), Rick Burch (bass & backing vocals) and Robin Vining (keyboards, guitar, percussion & backing vocals). From start to finish, these Arizona rockers entertained the packed venue with most of their biggest hits through the years. The crowd was particularly excited to hear “Futures,” “The Middle,” “23,” “Sweetness,” “Sure And Certain,” and “Hear You Me.” Jimmy Eat World also took the time to play their new track, “Love Never.” This will be on their forthcoming 10th studio album set for release this coming October via RCA Records.

Jimmy Eat World’s front-man Adkins demonstrated supreme musicianship and clearly played his heart out for every song and it showed early on as he began sweating and never seemed to stop throughout the hour-long set. It’s clear that this is band that has been playing together for 25 summers.

Connect With Jimmy Eat World Here – Website

And finally, it was Third Eye Blind’s turn to take the stage. The band is currently made up of Stephan Jenkins (lead vocals & rhythm guitar), Kryz Reid (lead guitar), Alex LeCavalier (bass guitar) and Brad Hargreaves (drums). They were formed in 1993 in San Francisco. They had everyone rush back to their seats after the intermission ready for a trip down memory lane. They didn’t disappoint and played a lot of their fan-favorite songs including “Never Let You Go,” “Graduate,” “I Want You,” “Jumper,” “Hows It Going To Be” and of course “Semi-Charmed Life.”

After performing a couple songs, Third Eye Blind front-man Jenkins exclaimed “It’s the final night of the tour and we want to hold onto this feeling forever. All we can do is hold on to this moment, all of us together as one. It takes everybody to keep that feeling. We are so filled with gratitude. We shouldn’t still be here playing for you all but here we are.” He then proceeded to ask the audience to shake hands with a stranger next to them.

Third Eye Blind also took the night to play a couple new songs. They performed “Screamer” and “The Kids Are Coming (To Take You Down)” which will be on their forthcoming sixth studio album, “Screamer,” due out on October 18th via Megaforce Records. 

Half-way through Third Eye Blind’s set, Jenkins discussed how this tour was all about offsetting the carbon footprint. Before the tour started, they decided to voluntarily invest in a carbon offset project in Alaska managed by ClimeCo, The American Land Conservancy, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Additionally, to offset audience travel – the biggest source of carbon emissions from the tour – a portion of each ticket sold supported a US-based ClimeCo carbon offset project. (This Alaska-based offset project is the first of its kind in the region. It supports conservation work on Afognak Island which is home to a coastal temperate rainforest with old-growth trees that are between 180 and 250 years old, plus a regrowth of new trees from the past 30 years. Together, these new and old forests create the potential for absorbing millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.) During the set, Jenkins actually called the founder of ClimeCo up on stage and gave him a sapling to take back to Alaska.

“Music and surfing are all foundational in my life and the longer I go, the more so it is not a big step to seek to make our tours ocean friendly,” adds Jenkins.  “Simple – skip single use plastic, carbon offsets and encourage other along the way.“

Connect With Third Eye Blind Here – Website

The FivePoint Amphitheatre was a perfect place to hold these three bands for the night. With a carefree outdoor music festival vibe, including food trucks galore, beer and cocktail stands, corn hole games spread out on the open lawn area, photo booths and more, the crowd was happy to be spending their Saturday at this pop-rock event.