Bush concert review at Madison Square Garden

With Bush‘s greeting of “Welcome to Madison Square Garden”, Gavin Rossdale and company rocked the intimate venue Webster Hall over the weekend, providing fans with renditions of some of the best rock to be released in the 90’s along with solid selections from their more recent albums. This is an Alternative Nation vintage concert review, from 2016.

Bush bring positive energy live

With a broken thermostat, it felt like sauna in the rays of the bright stage lights, but Bush and their fans didn’t let it stop them from appreciating a great set and the positive energy that was in the air. Gavin, who came out in a silver sports jacket, immediately took it off after the alt rock anthem “Everything Zen” opened the concert. After just 5 minutes, he was drenched in sweat but not once during the show did he let the conditions get the best of him. Only in the last half-hour, did cool breezes finally enter the area to the relief of everyone.

The 90-minute set had a bit of every album, but focused heavily on probably their best long player, their debut Sixteen Stone. 8 of the 12 tracks on that album were played, including deep cuts like “Monkey”, “Alien” and “X-Girlfriend” along with a hard rocking version of “Glycerine” in the encore.

Rossdale plays the hits at concert

Bush remained cohesive and effective throughout the heat, having now honed their chemistry so well that in addition to great renditions of their biggest hits like “Machinehead” and “Swallowed”, they can extend songs like when they jammed on “Comedown” and “Little Things”. The latter in particular was exciting since Gavin waded his way through the crowd singing the popular hit with plenty of help from the fans. Fans were in a hot frenzy afterwards, excited that he was so engaging.

Bush will finish up the northeastern leg of the tour in mid-August, take a brief break and conclude it with a west coast swing in October.

Setlist:

Everything Zen

Prizefighter

The Chemicals Between Us

Greedy Fly

The Sound of Winter

Warm Machine

Monkey

Swallowed

The Gift

Alien

The Only Way Out

X-Girlfriend

Little Things

Encore:

Machinehead

The One I Love

Glycerine

Comedown