Primus | A Thoroughly Creative Experience

When you’ve got it, you’ve got it. And Primus definitely has it. They’ve been around since the mid 1980s and remain consistently solid musically and as heavily experimental and progressive as ever.  I typically enjoy three solid meals a day of all-things-music (with extra helpings of rock) and consider myself reasonably well-versed but I wasn’t expecting to be so thoroughly impressed as I was at a recent Primus concert at Roseland Ballroom in New York City.  I had always been aware of them, but never paid close enough attention to their style and technical mastery. Absolutely amazing is the best way to describe their performance.

Yes, this is Primus.

Led by Les Claypool on bass and vocals with Larry LaLonde on guitar and Jay Lane on drums, Primus gave us a solid two hour performance of music that can only be categorized as “Primus”. Not rock, progressive rock, jazz, funk, metal, or even alternative rock. It was all of them combined, and then some. The music was so tightly composed and orchestrated and so loose and fluidly-delivered at the same time.

And then we had the visuals… A combination of retro technology (inflatable spacemen with projected moving images of a man staring down at the audience) to art-house films (from 1950s documentaries to CGI of a pachyderm on a trampoline). All in all, something for all the senses (including the audience’s contribution to the sense of smell – pot smoke).

After being swept up into the post-concert euphoria, I checked out their site and found that during their tours Primus hires local artists to create posters for each of the concert dates and releases them on the day of each show. Now, how’s that for making each show a unique event?! Very nicely done, gents.

Above (the top image being from my show) and below are from some of the shows already performed during the current tour.