Local heroes Jimmy Eat World triumph in return to Valley

“Phoenix, Arizona!” Jimmy Eat World frontman Jim Adkins greeted a near packed house at the Dodge Theatre in Phoenix on Wednesday night. “We’re from Mesa – don’t give up hope, kids, there’s hope for you if you live in the East Valley.”

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All kidding aside, Jimmy Eat World (which also includes guitarist/singer Tom Linton, bassist Rick Burch and drummer Zach Lind) played a blistering 90 minute set that had the mostly 20-somethings and teens in the crowd singing along with every word.

“It’s been awhile since we’ve played here – nothing personal, we live here,” Adkins told the crowd. “We’re going to play a lot of songs tonight.”

The band opened up with “Big Casino” from their 2007 disc “Chase This Light” before launching into the No. 2 modern rock hit “Sweetness” from their breakthrough 2001 disc “Bleed American” (which was changed to “Jimmy Eat World” after 9/11) followed by “Crush,” a tune from the 1999 release “Clarity.”

Mixing in older material such as “Your New Aesthetic” and the Linton-sung “Blister” from “Clarity” with newer tunes such as “Let it Happen,” “Always Be” and the gorgeous acoustic based “Carry You” from “Chase This Light,” Jimmy Eat World, all of whom are still in their early 30s, played a career spanning retrospective that illustrated the band’s progression from emo rockers to power pop craftsmen of the highest order.

The band’s best known hits (outside of Arizona, anyway) were spawned from “Jimmy Eat World,” and the band played several of the tunes from the disc including the hard rocking “Salt Sweat Sugar” (originally titled “Bleed American”), “Get it Faster,” “A Praise Chorus” and the band’s biggest hit “The Middle,” (which reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2001) which came during the encore.

The Dodge Theatre show was the Jimmy Eat World’s first headlining show in their home stomping grounds in a few years (the band opened up for Green Day at US Airways Arena in October of 2005), and judging by their frenetic set, it was good to be back home again.

Seattle’s Minus The Bear flew in to open for Jimmy Eat World and played a 45 minute set of progressive alternative rock (think Yes mixed with The Mars Volta) that featured plenty of guitar pyrotechnics from MOB’s Dave Knudsen and melodic vocals from singer Jake Snider. Plenty in the crowd, obviously their to see the much more conventional Jimmy Eat World, seemed confused by the band’s stop/start, math rock leanings, but Minus The Bear’s syncopated song structures were impressive.

Phoenix’s Dear And The Headlights, who played a main stage set at the Tempe Music Festival in March, were the first band on the bill and the late arriving crowd missed a terrific set of melodic, dynamic angst-pop fronted by singer Ian Metzger and featuring the inventive guitar work of PJ Waxman.