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| Puscifer's Agent Carina Round & Agent Dick Merkin @ the Warfield (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
With any Maynard James Keenan related project, you never know exactly what you're going to get, but two things remain consistent: the music and the experience. This past Thursday night at the Warfield, Maynard's Puscifer, a collaboration with producer/musician Mat Mitchell and stunning vocalist, Carina Round, kicked off their fall musical theater spectacle in front of a near capacity SF crowd not knowing what was about to hit them. Joining the band for this outing was bassist Greg Edwards and drummer Gunnar Olsen. This was the first night of their Fall 2022 tour after hitting much of the east and central US earlier this year, and the show didn't disappoint.
If you're seeing this show at another stop along the tour, let me warn you in advance, the band isn't messing around when Agent Dick Merkin (Maynard James Keenan's character throughout the show) details how Spam is made at the very beginning of the show. I won't ruin the story for you, but he's serious that if you pull out your phone to take pictures or video, agents within the audience will quickly escort you out of the theater as I saw first hand with a couple of folks standing in front of me during the show - never to be seen again.
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| Agent Dick Merkin (Maynard James Keenan) pointing out photographers @ the Warfield (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
This warning was reinforced at the end of the second song, when another character from the album Conditions of my Parole, Billy D, sneaks to the front of the stage to take pictures of the alien agents who have infiltrated the stage -- he's quickly grabbed and pulled from the pit and taken offstage only to be seen later in the production drinking alien semen and talking about how he's been probed. Yes, this is what you'll get from the mind of MJK. This wasn't a typical concert, this was a musical theatrical production.
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| Billy D being grabbed by agents @ the Warfield (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
With their latest release, Existential Reckoning, the band has taken a decidedly electronic departure from the country twang of 2011's Conditions of my Parole and the more rock focus of their prior release, 2015's Money Shot. They've also incorporated an extraterrestrial theme with the album which led to the character Agent Dick Merkin. Each of the band members were dressed as men in black, and periodically throughout the show, cloned alien agents crept onstage to interact with the players in some capacity.
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| Puscifer's Greg Edwards & a cloned agent @ the Warfield (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
The stage layout's pretty intense too, the lighting was great with a center strip of white spotlights that ran front to back and created a lighting effect similar to what you'd expect from a landing UFO. Although usually bathed in darkness or a slight fog, the band members rotated from their positions on stage to two spots about 20' above the stage on scaffolding that allowed either MJK and Carina or Greg and Mat to take positions from the elevated perch. Gunnar and his drum kit remained squarely centered at the bottom center of the scaffolding at center stage throughout the night.
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| Agents Carina Round & Dick Merkin @ the Warfield (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
In what I thought of as a funny moment, Agent Dick Merkin (or maybe it was actually MJK) said just before "Remedy" 'thank god for a small stage' as he and Agent Carina Round began to lightly jog in circles around the stage while singing. I could imagine that if the stage was wider, the two could have seriously gotten winded from the running!
During "Personal Prometheus," the cloned agents began to show signs of turning into actual aliens, as they snuck from the shadows. And "Momma Sed" which followed, was a very cool slow, nearly a cappella version of the song until about midway through where the song started to pick-up. Greg & Mat were both on synths during this song instead of their bass and guitar (respectively.)
After a 10-minute intermission, the band came back to the stage, but this is when Billy D returned instead of Agent Dick Merkin. Billy D mentioned something about getting probed -- possibly in reference to having been pulled from the crowd at the start of the show -- or possibly alluding to the 3 aliens who joined him on stage during "Bullet Train to Iowa", each with a probe and attempting to get the best of Billy D while he was signing. Billy D was able to steal one of the probes towards the end of the song and chased the aliens offstage.
Before "Flippant", Billy D posed the question 'what does alien semen taste like?' While drinking a shot of something before and during the song. At the end of the song, he then said 'I barely made it through that one! I may need more of that alien drink.' Just hilarious.
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| Agent Carina Round of Puscifer @ the Warfield (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Like I said at the start, the show is a mix of theatrics with outstanding musicianship throughout. Carina's voice melds perfectly with Maynards, and it's always great to hear Greg Edwards on bass. I absolutely loved his fretless fender and I can easily say he's one of the most underrated bassist out there. If you're not familiar, check out his other band Failure, which came through SF only a few months back. You can find our review of that show here.
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| Agent Greg Edwards of Puscifer @ the Warfield (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
If you missed the show in SF, shame on you! Don't miss them the next time they come to town as you'll never know what you're going to get! For those of you reading this outside of the Bay Area, do your best to catch them if they're coming to a city close by. You won't be disappointed!
Lastly, I'll mention the show opener, a goth-pop duo called Night Club featuring Emily Kavanaugh on lead vocals and Mark Brooks as backing DJ. A band I was intrigued to see after listening to their recent Die Die Lullaby on Bandcamp and seeing that it was mixed by Skinny Puppy's Dave 'Rave' Ogilvie. Emily puts on a great show and definitely got the crowd warmed-up to start the show. She was a great performer that was super energetic on stage and it was infectious. To me, she's a gothic Debbie Gibson with a strong voice and catchy, dark-ish beats. The band's definitely worth catching, so do your best to get there on time. They hit the stage promptly at 8pm here in SF!
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| Night Club's Emily Kavanaugh & Mark Brooks @ the Warfield (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
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