PRIMUS at Irvine Meadows
well, it's memorial day weekend here in the states. what better to do then to go see some fantastic live music. Primus was on order at irvine meadows and since i've been out of the country for so long it was high time i saw some decent live acts.
with no opening act and all things considered, the show was pretty lo-fi. a rather minimalistic stage and light setup. three giant white orbs hung above the stage and were to be the recipient the projected video eye candy. the band was tight as expected and each seemed to make the whole experience look effortless. i hate them all.
tim alexander (the drummer) is amazing on the kit. he's brilliantly tight and his playing is snappy. it helped too that they had a good sound check. his little solo was interesting as it seemed they pumped the kit through some kind of phaser/gate/compressor type of device then mixed that back through the speakers. the end result was a combination of the original drum sound and the affected drum sound; something i've never experienced before at a live gig. i love it when bands/musicians try new things like that. i'm sure the stoney people were diggin it too but weren't quite sure why.
another funny part of the show was when les up and stopped the band right in the middle of a song because he was out of tune. i knew something sounded a bit whack so it was cool to see him acknowledge that and do something about it. in typical les claypool fashion "stop stop...that sounds like shit to me..."
all in all, brilliant as always...even in a somewhat larger venue like irvine meadows. money well spent not unlike some of the other acts out there trying to gouge their fans for upwards of 100.00 - 300.00 a ticket.