I saw Primus at The State Theater in Kalamazoo MI Saturday night. Primus are a band that I have always had somewhat mixed feelings about. They are great musicians, but typically their albums have only about half worked for me. They always seem to have some really killer tracks along with quite a bit of filler or just plain weirdness. I had only seen them live once before when they opened for Rush back on the “Counterparts” tour. Even though they seemed to be ignored by much of the Rush audience I was really impressed at the time, so when I heard they were coming 10 minutes down the road I decided to check out the show. This tour is billed as “Primus And The Chocolate Factory” with the Fungi Ensemble. Their latest album is a Primus take on the music from the famous Wonka film in the 70’s. The Fungi Ensemble are two extra musicians, one on Cello and the other on Vibes and various percussion (this guy did a couple of incredible vibe solos during the 2nd half of the show). They did not have an opening act. The show opened with a very sparse stage with just the 3 guys positioned towards the front of the stage and a curtain covering the back half. Other than a few varl-lights that shown up on the ceiling, the lighting was pretty minimal. The band did a little over an hour set of classic Primus tracks and songs from their last album “Green Naugahyde”. They closed the first set with a scorching “Over The Electric Grapevine”. The band then took a short intermission. When they came back on the curtain opened to reveal the full Wonka production complete with big screen, large inflated mushrooms and Tim Alexander's huge percussion / drum kit. They played the Wonka album from start to finish using clips from the film as background off an on during the set. The whole thing was very psychedelic in nature, and very Primus like. When they did the “Oompa Loompa” songs they would have these two large Oompas come out on stage and do a little dance thing. I had really worried the whole Wonka thing might get old fast, but I ended up really enjoying it. For an encore they came back and did 3 additional classic songs. “Southbound Pachyderm” was especially good as they stepped out instrumentally and really jammed it out. I maintain that song pure progressive rock, but not everyone agrees with me on that. During their final song “Here Come The Bastards” they showed a short film that they had filmed earlier in the day of one of the Oompa Loompas at Bell’s Brewery here in town which was cool. All in all I thought it was a great show by one of the more unique bands on the planet.
SET LIST:
THOSE DAMNED BLUE COLLAR TWEEKERS
LAST SALMON MAN
DUCHESS AND THE PROVERBIAL MIND SPREAD
THE TOYS GO WINDING DOWN
OVER THE FALLS
LEE VAN CLEEF
DEL DAVIS TREE FARM
MY NAME IS MUD
OVER THE ELECTRIC GRAPEVINE
INTERMISSION
HELLO WONKITES
CANDY MAN
CHEER UP CHARLIE
GOLDEN TICKET
LERMANINOFF
PURE IMAGINATION
OOMPA AUGUSTUS
SEMI-WONDROUS BOAT RIDE
OOMPA VIOLET
I WANT IT NOW
OOMPA VERUCA
WONKMOBILE
OOPMA TV
FAREWELLL WONKITES
ENCORE
TOO MANY PUPPIES
SOUTHBOUND PACHYDERM
HERE COME THE BASTARDS
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