Back in 2012, alternative band Third Eye Blind was asked to play the RNC. They replied hell no and singer Stephan Jenkins had this to say in response:
They are in fact, a party dedicated to exclusion. No where is this more clear than their stop-people-who-don’t-vote-for-Republicans-from-voting-at-all-Voter ID law. They now seek to subvert the democratic process itself because they no longer think they can win by adhering to basic tenets of our democracy like the Voting Rights Act. I call that craven. For that reason alone, if I came to their convention, I would Occupy their convention.
The Republican party is on the wrong side of Lilly Ledbetter, fiscal responsibility, unions, civil rights, climate change, evolution, the Big Bang theory, stem cells, Medicare, and me, and that’s why we will let them be, in their government-funded event center, to sell their song and dance without me.
This year the band used a charity concert in Cleveland during the Republican National Convention as an opportunity to get some pretty amazing digs in at the Republican Party.
Witnesses at the group’s Tuesday night show in Cleveland, a charity gig inside the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, reported that Jenkins used the occasion to say he “repudiates” what the Republican party now stands for. Clips uploaded to social media platforms show the crowd booing, followed by Jenkins exclaiming: “You can boo all you want, but I’m the motherf---in’ artist up here.”
Some attendees grumbled that the only recognizable song of the set was their final number, “Jumper,” which reached No. 5 on the Hot 100 in 1998. Jenkins had a reason for performing that one, and it wasn’t to placate the crowd. Having previously described the song as “a noir about a guy who jumped off a bridge and killed himself because he was gay," the singer expressed a wish in his intro that the party would welcome people “like my cousins who are gay into the American fabric. To love this song is to take into your heart the message and to actually have a feeling to arrive and move forward and not live your life in fear and imposing that fear on other people.”
As “Jumper” wrapped up, Jenkins seemed to taunt the crowd, saying, “Raise your hand if you believe in science.” Although a preliminary setlist one attendee tweeted out had their signature song, “Semi-Charmed Life,” listed as an encore, the group did not return to the stage.
And that’s how you do it.
Enjoy a couple clips of the deliciously disastrous show below.