At the Knitting Factory, Third Eye Blind takes fans for a ride across the decades

It’s been a while since since the band Third Eye Blind released an album. Since their record “Dopamine” dropped in 2015, all their fans have had to listen to was an EP last year, “We Are Drugs” – an appropriate name judging by the reactions of their fans last night.

Stephan Jenkins, who has been Third Eye Blind’s lead singer since the band’s inception, came up on stage shrouded by fog in a white hoodie to screams and cheers before kicking off the night with “Sharp Knife.”

For the next two hours it was good, old fashioned, straight-up rock.

Trippy light shows and projections? Nope.

Quirky props or elaborate productions? Nope.

Just the band, front and center, song after song after song. The show started hard and fast, a slew of their hits following “Sharp Knife”: “Blinded,” “Narcolepsy,” “Semi-Charmed Life.” The packed venue ate it up.

Jenkins, front and center; Alex LeCavalier on the bass with his fabulous hair; to the right, Brad Hargreaves on the drums to the back; Alex Kopp on keyboards to the left; and Joseph Pepper from the band Cartel standing in for Kryz Reid on lead guitar.

Sometimes its easy to forget how many popular hits a band like Third Eye Blind has had. Not last night.

They sang “How’s It Going To Be” with the crowd, performed their cover of “Mine” from Beyonce, and brought everyone back to 1998 with “Jumper.”

Third Eye Blind has a distinctive sound, and as much as they’ve changed throughout the years, they’ve kept the catchiness that made them such a hit in the late 90s and early 2000s.

The show felt like a warm embrace from that friend you haven’t heard from in awhile. Sitting down to catch up with each other, you realize rekindling that old friendship was as easy as it was ten or twenty years ago.

Hopefully, Spokane won’t have to wait that many years before Third Eye Blind comes back around for their next visit.