• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Bush

Aug 12, 2024 By Candace McDuffie Web Exclusive

After more than three decades together, Bush are celebrating their monumental anniversary by embarking on “Loaded: The Greatest Hits Tour.” The North American headline tour commenced on July 26 in Bend, Oregon and ends on September 15 in Los Angeles, California. Candlebox and Jerry Cantrell have joined the Grammy-nominated group on this massive endeavour, with their Chicago stop on August 7 being one of the most memorable so far.

“I feel like now it’s a case of just really doing the music as well as possible. Doing the best shows, trying to sing really well. Just do all my basics that kind of define me,” frontman Gavin Rossdale tells Under The Radar. “I love being in a band and I love making music and that’s it. It’s as simple as that–and what a way to live. Since I get to do this and it’s really become apparent that I have a licence to do it, I’m trying to do it really well. And that goes for the new records that I make as well.”

At Chicago’s Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island, Rossdale and company opened with quite the trio of hits: “Everything Zen,” “Machinehead” and “Bullet Holes.” His energy felt magnanimous throughout the evening, with tracks like “The Chemicals Between Us,” “Greedy Fly” and “The Sound of Winter” being delivered with undeniable amounts of passion and sheer excitement.

Surviving the music industry for 30 years is no small feat, especially when many of Rossdale’s peers lost–or came close to losing–their lives to addiction. He reveals how he never succumbed to the tragic pitfalls of fame. “Growing up in London, I was really lucky because any kind of madness in the drugs that we took weren’t laced with today’s problems…you can’t experiment with anything. You can take fentanyl and die, so it puts an end to it,” Rossdale explains.

“And I never had an interest in more sinister things like heroin and those kinds of more professional drugs–I was always interested too much in life. I believe in life too much and I believe in myself too much and so I never went down those dark roads.” However, Rossdale did recently open up about his past addiction to Xanax and how it was important for him to be transparent with his fans about it.

“It was like a guilty secret, you know, to live a life like that…I just felt so unhealthy. Ironically, I was [using Xanax] because I was working so much. I worked on different continents but I wanted to always seem as if I’d had a good night’s sleep,” the star says. “But I only meant to [share that information] for the people who are out there who may be struggling with [addiction].

“I think it’s really dangerous for people to see people that they look up to and admire as these sort of figures with these lives that are out of reach or out of focus for them. I thought I’d welcome more dialogue about that, you know? To be of more help to people who are struggling–that’s all it is.”

To the Chicago crowd, Rossdale insisted that “Nothing stays the same” and that “Forgiveness is everything.” During “Little Things,” he even led the crowd in a “We don’t give a fuck” chant but his controlled chaos quickly transformed into recognition for the late Steve Albini who was a staple in the local scene. The renowned musician and sound engineer passed away earlier this year and produced Bush’s 1996 sophomore Razorblade Suitcase.

Rossdale thanked Albini’s widow, Heather Whinna, for attending their Northerly Island performance while praising Albini for helping so many independent musicians and embodying the meaning of music. His ethereal solo rendition of “Swallowed” felt like a tribute to the engineer. He concluded the evening with “Glycerine” and “Comedown” while reminding everyone in attendance about Albini’s legacy. “I deeply miss Steve,” he remarked. “He is Chicago’s finest.”