There’s something different about Red Rocks at dusk. The light hits just right, the sandstone glows, and everything feels a little more significant. On the evening of July 10, that feeling was absolutely earned. This wasn’t just another stop on a tour. It was a homecoming for Incubus, returning to the very stage where they recorded their legendary Live at Red Rocks album 21 years ago. And they didn’t come alone.

Paris Jackson opened the night with a performance that felt less like a setlist and more like a confession. Her voice, smoky and cracked in all the right places, floated through the amphitheater like incense. Vulnerable. Earnest. Intentional. She brought a quiet storm of energy, full of tension and texture. But the moment that shifted the entire crowd came when she invited Mike Einziger of Incubus onstage.

It wasn’t flashy. It wasn’t rehearsed within an inch of its life. It was raw, and it hit hard. You could feel the crowd holding its breath. It was the kind of moment you don’t expect at the start of a rock show, but one that made it clear Paris Jackson knows exactly how to win over a crowd.

If Paris was the soul, Manchester Orchestra brought the fire. Their set was explosive, a tightly coiled blend of indie rock dynamism and post-hardcore grit. Frontman Andy Hull was a man possessed, one minute delivering verses like secrets, the next howling like he was chasing demons out of the rocks.

The band’s ability to move between delicate restraint and total sonic assault is what sets them apart. They didn’t play to the crowd, they played with it, like an instrument, tuning it to every rise and fall. It was sweaty, emotional, and absolutely unrelenting.

And then, the sun fully down, the lights came up, and Incubus took the stage.

It’s easy to wax nostalgic about this band since they’ve been part of the alt rock bloodstream for over two decades. But nostalgia doesn’t sell out Red Rocks seven times. Talent does. Vision does. And the ability to reinvent yourself without losing your soul definitely does.

They opened by playing their 2001 masterpiece Morning View front to back. The ethereal layering of “Echo,” the primal pulse of “Circles,” the quiet ache of “Aqueous Transmission.” It was all there, along with crowd favorites “Wish You Were Here” and “Nice to Know You,” rendered faithfully but with the weight of years behind them. You could see it in the faces of longtime fans mouthing lyrics with eyes closed like prayer.

The band was locked in. Brandon Boyd, ever the magnetic frontman, shifted from falsetto to full blown scream with all of the finesse fans have come to expect. Mike Einziger’s guitar work was both powerful and precise, a sonic paradox he seems to have mastered. The rhythm section, José Pasillas and Nicole Row, were a groove machine, and Chris Kilmore’s ambient textures filled the space between Red Rocks’ towering monoliths like fog.

There’s something poetic about a band returning to a place that helped define them, not just to revisit the past, but to affirm who they are now. This entire show was a love letter, really. To the fans. To the venue. To the version of themselves that played here for the first time back in 2004.

Seven shows. Twenty one years. One unforgettable night.

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