M'Lou Elkins
Primus kicked off its long-awaited North American Tour mid-country, featuring NYC duo Battles as opener on its first stretch. Battles warmed-up the Majestic show with crowd-pleasing tracks featuring its unique, celebrated sound, which has been earning them spots on various media, including angsty features like “Big Fan” and “Twilight: Eclipse.” No surprise that their sound landed well with the crowd, since the so-called math rockers are a natural match for Primus die-hards.
By the time Primus emerged, opening with “To Defy the Laws of Tradition,” the crowd was ready and, well, a bit confused. Situated an unusual 40 feet downstage, the band itself was visibly perplexed by its stage placement, so far from the madding crowd. Claypool even wondered aloud about the unusual set-up. Perhaps the roadies simply failed to move the Primus equipment forward after removing Battles’ gear.
No loss of momentum, though. After following up with “Golden Boy,” “American Life,” and “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver,” the band delivered “Conspiranoia” – its newest gem off the 2022 3-track EP Conspiranoid. Claypool said there’s a scientific term for the 11-minute epic track: “new shit.” Very new indeed – it’s only the second time the band has played the song live thus far and it was the only track they played off the new EP. In an interview earlier this month, Claypool told Consequence Sound “I’d been itching to record an opus – basically a long, winding, bastard of a song, reminiscent of some of the compositions I cut my teeth (or ears) on, in my music-hungry adolescence.” “‘Conspiranoia’ was sprouted from a seed I had planted in my notebook a year or so ago – a few lines commenting on the mental state of the contemporary world.”
Balancing out the new with the old, Claypool prepped the crowd for a throwback. “And this is called ‘old shit,’” he said, just as the band launched into a sandwiched medley of “My Name is Mud” and “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver.”
Claypool apologized to the audience for the nearly 45-minute delay to the show’s start time, pointing to some trouble with the gas line on their bus en route to the venue. He took the fall, saying it was actually his fault they were late because he tried to fix it and “got greasy.” With occasional musings like “this double-neck (guitar) is heavy as shit,” Claypool was true to form and a reminder of why the band has had a cult following since its Berkeley Square days.
In a string of six Rush covers, Claypool and company delivered an elegant tribute to their multi-platinum heroes. That’s because Primus is ramping up its 64-date world tour ‘A Tribute To Kings’ – a cities-long tribute to the Canadian prog-rock legends. ‘A Tribute To Kings’ is about paying tribute to a band that has given him so much inspiration over the years, Claypool told Rolling Stone in a 2020 interview – before the tour was officially sidelined by COVID. It’s just the latest in a long series of Rush-related milestones for Primus, who first opened for their musical heroes in 1992.
The band’s tribute to Rush is also quite personal for Claypool. “Hemispheres was my first concert,” Claypool said, referring to Rush’s 1978 album and tour. “Originally we’d always kind of joked around about doing Hemispheres…but we settled on Kings, because A) it was the first Rush record I ever heard and B) it contains ‘Cygnus X-1,’ which has always been my favorite Rush tune. It seems to be a good one for us to tackle; 2112 seemed a little obvious.” “Geddy, Alex and Neil had been superheroes to Larry, Herb and I in our teens,” Claypool recalled, “so when we all became pals while touring together in the early ’90s, we were pretty delighted; partially because of the musical geek-out factor but mostly because the three guys whom we had admired so much from afar, turned out to be truly great, down-to-earth humans, and like us, a tad eccentric.”
Claypool introduced the band’s final song with an anecdote about requests from fancy people. During a pre-show Q&A, one of the “fancy people” called him out on never performing one particular song when they played San Antonio spots. Acknowledging that the fancy people were right, Claypool told the first-row fans that they had to approach the stage as a condition of the band playing that song. We all did, with “Tommy the Cat” as our reward.
Amid (very) bad lighting and an odd stage setup, the band was barely visible. But its legacy was clear.
Conspiranoid drops on Friday, April 22. Click to pre-order the EP and stream “Conspiranoia.” The EP release coincides with the second tour leg of “A Tribute to Kings,” which features Battles, as well as Black Mountain and The Black Angels.
“A Tribute to Kings” tickets are on sale now at www.primusville.com/tour. Superfans are in luck, too. Primus will once again partner with On Location & CID Entertainment for the ‘A Tribute to Kings’ tour to offer ticket packages that include one premium ticket, an invitation to a Q&A experience with Primus, exclusive VIP merch, and more. For full details, visit https://www.cidentertainment.com/events/primus-tour/
Comedy Central also recently announced that Primus will be featured in the “South Park: 25th Anniversary Concert” this summer. The concert, with Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Primus and Ween, takes place on Wednesday, August 10th at Red Rocks Park and Amphitheatre – which is where the tour will wrap that Saturday before heading to Europe for its Autumn leg. For more information and to purchase tickets please visit www.SouthParkatRedRocks.com.
Check out the Primus photo gallery from the show here.
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