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| Ler LaLonde, Maynard James Keenan, and Les Claypool @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Time is an extraordinary phenomenon. On any given day, it can either crawl along or rush by, depending on our perspective. As we age, that perspective becomes more profound, reminding us of the preciousness of how much time might be left. As I find myself approaching the age of 50, looking back on the past, I think back to the first time I witnessed Maynard James Keenan perform... a moment from 32 years ago, when Tool graced the side stage of the 1992 Lollapalooza tour in Scranton, PA. The passage of 32 years seems almost surreal, and throughout this time, I’ve marveled at Maynard’s evolution. While Tool remains the band he'll be most associated with, he's also part of two other 'side-projects'. A Perfect Circle, originally formed by Tool’s early guitar tech, Billy Howerdel, and Puscifer. Each have consistently delivered the MJK-infused music fix that's filled the time between Tool’s recording and touring breaks.
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| Carina Round, Maynard James Keenan, and Les Claypool @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
But on this past Sunday night at Berkeley’s Greek Theatre, a remarkable event unfolded: A Perfect Circle, Puscifer, and Primus joined forces to celebrate Maynard James Keenan’s 60th birthday. The show followed a format similar to his one-night ‘Cinquanta’ 50th birthday bash in 2014, held in Los Angeles. Although, for his ‘Sessanta’, Maynard embarked on a 13-date tour, featuring all three bands. Unlike typical concerts, there was no opening act; instead, the lineup rotated throughout the night, with each band performing around three songs before passing the stage to the next group which was broken into three acts.
To start the night off, A Perfect Circle would be the first band to take to the stage. Greg Edwards, Matt McJunkins, and Billy Howerdel took their places across the front of the stage, and on either side, there were stairways that led up to a second level in the rear of the stage that accommodated two sofas on either side, along with three drum kits -- one for each of the drummers across each of the bands. Unfortunately, Josh Freese who was originally part of the tour as part of A Perfect Circle had to recently drop out due to commitments with his other band, Foo Fighters. So Puscifer's drummer, Gunnar Olsen, filled in on the drum kit on the far right, which was normally reserved for Josh. Standing at the top of the stairs on the left, was the birthday boy himself, MJK who eventually came down to center stage about 3/4's the way through the opening song, "The Package."
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| Ler LaLonde, Maynard James Keenan, and Les Claypool @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
At the conclusion of the song, Puscifer's co-vocalist, Carina Round, wheeled out a birthday cake for MJK and where other performers from the other bands walked up the stairs on either side of the stage to lounge on the sofas, eat some cake, drink champagne and take in the show. Maynard explained how the show was going to work after the first song, and Edwards moved from guitar to a set of keyboards on the left-center side of the stage for "Disillusioned." Edwards piano breakdown was my personal standout during this song.
"The Contrarian" was the third song of the night and saw Carina Round return to the stage from her spot on the sofa and join in on vocals. Greg Edwards remained on keyboards and was joined by Billy Howerdel for the start of the song before returning to guitar after the opening.
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| Mat Mitchell, Matt McJunkins, Tim Alexander, Ler LaLonde, Carina Round, Gunnar Olsen, Les Claypool, Maynard James Keenan, Greg Edwards, and Billy Howerdel (L-R) @ the Greek Theater (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Primus was up next, and to stall for time, guitarist Larry 'Ler' LaLonde opened with the undulating guitar riffs of "Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers" -- but in an extended fashion to allow for MJK to ride up the stairs on a motorized chair -- because he's old now. ha! As MJK reached the sofa, Les Claypool, god among bassists, and Tim Alexander (drums) were ready to continue on with Tweekers. Afterwards, Les told the Berkeley crowd "I love this place. You've got a whole new upper level (referring to the recently added/remodeled upper bowl section of the Greek.) I remember Cheapskate Hill. Now you can see the Golden Gate Bridge and the clock tower. (Referring to Maynard) You're now an OG, old gummer(?) He's now celebrating his 61st trip around the sun which he celebrated a few days ago."
When Primus broke into their second song, "Too Many Puppies," Billy Howerdel picked up a drum stick and helped Tim tap out eighth notes on the cymbals before retreating to the stage right sofa.
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| Maynard James Keenan & Les Claypool @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
As they wrapped up their set and as Les was walking off the right side of the stage, he gave MJK a fist-bump on MJK's motorized chair descent. Puscifer was up next and Mat Mitchell took his spot on guitars over on the left of the stage, with Carina and MJK at the center and Greg Edwards now on the bass guitar. Gunnar took his spot on the center drum kit as well. The band broke into "Galileo" which featured the amazing vocal harmonies of Carina & Maynard at the closing of the song. On "Tiny Monsters", both Carina and Greg moved to a pair of synths or keyboards -- I believe Carina was playing a Waldorf Iridium, but I couldn't make out what Greg was playing.
For "Indigo Children," Maynard made his way to the top right of the stage -- using the stairs this time -- while Greg moved back to the bass guitar and Mat and Carina played their respective synths at stage center. This was a much slower version of the song than the album version -- it was the V for Versatile mix and sounded great.
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| Carina Round, Les Claypool, and Maynard James Keenan @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
There was a short video interlude to give the bands a quick break. The interlude featured the old/hospitalized Maynard as seen in the video above. He sat in a wheelchair and asked Carina, the nurse off screen, "What do you call bears with no ears? ... Buh." ha!
Primus was back to kick off the second act of the night and broke right into "Jerry was a Race Car Driver." The crowd loved every minute and at one point, I was thinking to myself who the crowd was here to see -- yeah, Primus is a local band, but this was MJK's night, wasn't it? The crowd was fawning over Primus and how could you not really? What struck me about their next song, "My Name is Mud," was the amazingly blue lighting that bathed the stage and performers and created some incredibly striking visuals. Maynard, Greg and Gunnar relaxed on the upper sofa on the right throughout this set; and just after Mud finished, Les spoke to the crowd and said "I just realized something, I wrote that bass line right here in the dressing room back in the late 90's -- here's our third song, are you ready?" And with that, Les began to speak of a cat... 'Maynard' the Cat, who had many stories to tell... Maynard at this point was seated at the top of the stairs on the right of the stage with a book in one hand and microphone in the other and read his parts throughout the song.
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| Les Claypool @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Let me be clear, the chorus 'Say baby do you wanna lay down with me, say baby do you wanna lay down on my side' -- was a fan favorite of the night that featured the amazing bass lines from Les combined with Maynard on vocals... the crowd absolutely loved it! At the end of the song, it was time for Les to take a turn on the motorized char and what was funny about his ascent was that he played faster bass lines as he rode higher and then once he made it to the top, he broke out into an amazing bass solo while he danced down the stairs and back to center stage. In effect, Les rode the chair up to deliver it to MJK who then himself rode the chair back down to the stage for the return of Puscifer.
"Flippant" was likely the most energetic Puscifer song of the night, which featured Carina & Maynard prancing past each other from left to right or right to left across the front of the stage during the song. Edwards was back on bass but up near Gunnar's center drum kit, whereas Mat was on guitar on the upper left section -- leaving the mainstage for Carina & Maynard's dancing antics.
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| Billy Howerdel @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
Both Mat and Greg returned to the stage for the slowed down, V for Versatile mix of "Momma Sed" and where Mat went back to playing the synths in the early part of the song, but back to guitar to pick up the pace in the second half of the song.
During "The Underwhelming," a mini ping pong table was wheeled out to the right side of the stage where Tim Alexander and Matt McJunkins began playing during Puscifer's performance. Les also came out during the song to have a race against Maynard on the motorized chairs on either side of the stage. Maynard used the chair on the left, and Les took the one of the right. Although it was a close race, Maynard seemed to win and got off his chair, but Les kept going up and down. Les was now wearing a pig mask by the way -- earlier he'd been wearing a long nose as part of his costume.
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| Ler LaLonde, Maynard James Keenan, and Les Claypool @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
A Perfect Circle returned to the stage, but this time, instead of Gunnar on drums, Tim stood in for Josh -- at least for the first song, "The Hollow." Gunnar replaced Tim on their next song, "So Long, and Thanks for all the Fish" and the band was also joined by Claypool on an upright bass that he played with a string bow. It may have been during this set where I thought to myself how much I'd missed hearing A Perfect Circle live. They haven't toured since 2018 when I last caught them at the San Jose State Events Center, which absolutely feels like an eternity ago. Howerdel had a solo tour back in 2022, but APC is long overdue for new music and tour, so here's hoping they've got something planned for the near future!
There was a 10-minute intermission after the APC set and where we saw a new video of the old/hospitalized Maynard on the video screens -- again with him in a wheelchair speaking with Carina the nurse offscreen... What followed was a series of dad-jokes from Maynard as he drifted off to sleep only to be awoken every minute as the clocked ticked down across the 10 minutes... Memorable jokes included: 'What do lawyers wear to court? I don't know, what? responded Carina. That's why I asked you, said Maynard. And Carina responded, 'I don't know, maybe a law-suit?' Maynard also asked, 'how do rock stars stay so cool? Because of all the fans!' Another was 'What did the pirate say when he turned 80?' Carina responded, 'let me guess, ayem-aytee' (instead of aye may-tee.) Old Maynard responded, 'what? You don't look it!'
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| Ler LaLonde & Maynard James Keenan @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
The third act began with Puscifer starting off with "The Humbling River" and Matt McJunkins joining on guitar, Claypool on the upright bass again, and Tim Alexander joining Gunnar on drums. For 'The Remedy", their next song, Les, Tim and McJunkins departed to leave the stage back to the core Puscifer performers. More hilarity ensued when someone wheeled out the classic 'Rock 'em Sock 'em' boxing toy board game to the center of the stage and where Carina and Maynard began playing against each other. From my vantage point, Carina won the match and did a little celebratory dance as she backed away from the game board.
A Perfect Circle was back with "Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums" and what stood out to me was the lights shifted to bright whites throughout the song -- a departure from the moody darker mix of colors used throughout the show up to that point. And from there, the white lights shifted to yellow for another APC fan favorite, "Judith".
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| Carina Round, Maynard James Keenan, and Les Claypool @ the Greek Theatre (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
After those two, the stage swapped again and it was back to Primus for "Southbound Pachyderm" -- and back to the moody nights, this time deep blues and purples bathed the artists onstage. This one featured Billy Howerdel, Gunnar and Joe Slaby (APC's drum tech) behind the drums on the second level of the stage.
Maynard returned to the stage and opened up by saying "I've been blessed to be able to work with some of the most amazing musicians on the planet, and for my birthday, I got three new songs." Which led into the new A Perfect Circle track called "Kindred," followed by Puscifer's "No Angel," and finally "Pablo's Hippos" by Primus.
But the final song of the night featured all the artists come together for a performance of Puscifer's "Grand Canyon" -- one of my personal favorites and surely one of the many highlights throughout the night.
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