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| Les Claypool of Primus @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
I'm once again embarrassed to say that it's been too long since I last saw our Bay Area's own Primus perform and I don't have a single valid excuse for it. You see, my first Primus show was back in 1993 at Lollapalooza shortly after the band had released Pork Soda. It then took 17 years for me to make the time to catch them again at the Great American Music Hall in 2010 (link). I guess the silver lining this time is that it's only been 12 years since that show, so I'm optimistic that I can close the gap between now and the next time I'm fortunate enough to see Primus perform! But I'm getting ahead of myself! This is all about last night's show at the San Jose Civic and what a show it was!
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| Primus @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Primus originally announced the 'Tribute to Kings' tour back in 2020, but wasn't able to actually launch the tour until last August. The first leg of that tour was a 3 month trek with a winter break before launching this second leg of the tour earlier this spring. The band spent the first half of their set playing Primus material, took a brief intermission and then returned to play through the 1977 album A Farewell to Kings by another 3-piece prog rock band, Rush. I wasn’t familiar with the show opener, a 5-piece band called The Black Angels, and I was expecting something totally different than what they sounded like. The band was neither black, nor were they angelic, and they didn’t play anything close to the death metal that for some reason I had in my mind. What they did sound like reminded me most of something like the band My Morning Jacket. I’d best describe them as prog country rockers and one of the guitarists interspersed some very Pink Floyd-esque guitar sounds that you might hear on Animals or Dark Side throughout their set. They also had not one, but two left handed guitarists, and their keyboardist also played guitar at several points in their show along with harmonica. They were surprisingly good and I’ll definitely add them into my rotation now. The band played for 45 minutes and left the stage at about 8:45. Then began the long wait — in actuality it was only 30 minutes — for Primus to take the stage.
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| Larry 'Ler' LaLonde of Primus @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
The San Jose Civic was probably about 80-85% full, which is commendable for a Sunday night show. And the crowd couldn’t wait for the band to show themselves. Chants of ‘Primus Sucks!’ were heard scattered through the auditorium leading up to when the lights went out and the trio made up of Les Claypool (bass), Larry ‘Ler’ LaLonde (guitar), and Tim Alexander (drums) took their places onstage. Although Les gets the lion share of the attention, this three-piece is an absolutely incredible set of musicians, and no one else could cover any Rush album better than these three!
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| Tim Alexander of Primus @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Primus launched into ‘Too Many Puppies’ which was followed by ‘Sgt. Baker’ and it may have been just after 'Pudding Time' that Les spoke to the crowd, saying 'Welcome my friends to the show that never ends… Happy Father’s Day, Happy Juneteenth… Happy Tribute to Kings day here in San Jose… We’re going to play some Rush at some point tonight and hope that’s acceptable to you, and if not, get the fuck out… Until then, we’re gonna subject you to a shitload of Primus!' He was spot-on! Everything about the setlist was fantastic with highlights (for me) that included the 12-minute funky 'Conspiranoia' complete with the full video projected high above on the video screen at the back of the stage. 'Wynona's Big Brown Beaver', also with the classic cowboy video projected, and of course, 'Jerry was a Race Car Driver' -- one of my favorites.
After about a 20 minute break, the band came back to play through Rush's A Farewell to Kings album and I believe Les relied on some vocal effects to make him sound a bit closer to Geddy Lee, but besides that, the band relied on their instruments to channel Geddy, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. Les played one of two Moogs through a few of the songs, while Ler changed to a new guitar (or guitars!) with just about every song. Another fun story came from Les after "Xanadu" when Les spoke about how special the night tonight was for him. Les spoke about being 15 years old and chugging 4 beers in the parking lot of the Cow Palace before puking all over and heading into see the Rush Hemispheres tour in 1978 and it was his buddy Joe Maloney who had bought the beer that night. Joe was in the audience for their show tonight, along with brother Dan Maloney who were not only school friends from El Sobrante, but Dan also hand crafted Les's pachyderm bass guitar. Les went further by saying how big of a Rush fan he was, and that the band was nervous about going out on the road to perform A Farewell to Kings and that they'd never rehearsed together for the shows. He also mentioned that Joe's an incredibly discerning Rush fan and finally admitted that he fucked up the end of the song (Xanadu) and said 'what are ya gonna do?' rhetorically to himself. Like I said before, no other band living today can cover Rush the way Primus can. The whole night was great, but it was fantastic to hear A Farewell to Kings in its entirety played by a cover band of this calibre. If you missed the show, there are a few videos of shows from other cities on the tour that you can find on YouTube. They close out the US tour on June 25th in Vegas, but have a few left to go in California, so be sure to check their remaining tour dates here.
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| Les Claypool of Primus @ the San Jose Civic (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
If you're reading this from here in the Bay Area and can't get your fix of Les Claypool, be sure to check out Les Claypool's Bastard Jazz date at the new Guild Theater in Menlo Park on July 28th. That show will feature Stanton Moore, Mike Dillon, and Skerik. Tickets can be found here.
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