Returning to Southern California for the kickoff of its annual Spring tour (leading up to 311 Day 2012, slated for March 10-11 in Las Vegas), 311 performed to a formidably full house on Tuesday night at City National Grove of Anaheim.

As usual, the Nebraska-based outfit rocked, rapped, danced and jammed through a set of hits spanning its 20-plus-year career. “Full Ride,” “Freeze Time” and “All Mixed Up” served as invigorating openers for the throngs of old-school fans that likewise bolstered the show’s launch by unabashedly belting out every lyric.

Click here for a photo slideshow of 311′s performance in Anaheim.

The newer tracks that cropped up mid-set – including “Timebomb,” “Wild Nights” and “Something Out of Nothing” – were less impressive. The bulk of their riffs and vocal harmonies, performed by vocalists Nick Hexum and SA Martinez, resounded like unremarkable rehashes of the group’s early sound.

Yet it wasn’t just the repetitive nature of those tunes that proved problematic. For whatever reason, Hexum and Martinez sounded uncomfortably off-key when they harmonized, killing momentum in otherwise powerhouse picks (“Uncalm” and “Beautiful Disaster”), and similarly marring the fluidity of typically entrancing tunes (“Prisoner” and “Amber”).

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