My first real show in New York - and after missing Les Claypool on the C2B3 and first “Fancy Band” tour, I felt obligated to attend.
The venue reminds me of a House of Blues - new construction, expert sound system but lacking the character of an old theater or ballroom. Capacity is a little over 2000 but the show was not sold out. Relatively cheap ticket but Nokia gets paid at the bar: $7 beers and $10+ booze drinks.
The opening band was The Coup - hip-hop from Oakland, CA which makes sense both from the funk perspective and that Claypool always supports Bay-area acts. Technically a sound band, influenced by Parliment/Funkadelic. The lyrics were a bit lost on me and the crowd wasn’t so much into hip-hop. Actually, the crowd on a whole was mediocre for a Claypool show - either into it or not.
A lot of Primus and old-school Claypool fans have not taken well to the band lineup omitting a guitar player. This spot has been filled by Claypool protegie, Gabby La-La - a cute little Asian playing the sitar, theramin and providing backup vocals. It is because of this that much of the old material cannot be performed and the old material that is has lost some of it’s punch.
The new material off of Whales and Woe sounds fantastic, even though much of it does have guitar tracks performed by Claypool himself. I suspect that because this material showcases his bass playing even more than in the past, he’s able to pull it off live with Gabby. The remaining members of the “Fancy” band brought it as usual and Mike Dylon and Paulo Baldi performed what was probably my favorite drum set I’ve seen or heard on bootlegs.
The setlist was predictable but the Primus teases made it special:
Rumble of The Diesel
Roof
Whales and Woe
Long In The Tooth
Vernon the Company Man
Mr. Krinkle tease > One Step Beyond
D’s Diner
drums/whamola
Buzzards of Green Hill
Cosmic Highway
One Better > Tommy The Cat > One Better
encore:
American Life*
Iowan Gal*
Lust Stings
* solo on the bass banjo
Before Lust Stings, Les made a hilarious comment which I will paraphrase here:
If One Better is the bicep of Whales and Woe, than Lust Stings is certainly the scrotum of the album.
I was just listening to Les Claypool - One Better