Eatons Hill Hotel, Brisbane
Sunday April 8, 2018 :
On a balmy Sunday evening we arrived to a sold out Eaton’s Hill Hotel and one look at the crowd milling around outside and its safe to say this was, for the most part, boys night out. Sweaty dudes wearing old school band shirts and scruffy hair were plentiful, with the odd girl being bought along for the ride.
We walked into the main ballroom to the opening sounds of The Dean Ween Group. I admit, I had no idea who these guys were, and it came as a complete surprise when I realised that I was watching most of the members of Ween on stage before me. The crowd was definitely into the rock stylings they were putting forward, and the band were looking more than stoked with the response, smiles and plenty of on stage jams ensued to warm up the crowd for the night ahead.
After a short break the lights fell and the sound of circus music filled the room. The crowd surged forward before Les, Ler and Herb The Ginseng Drummer sauntered out on stage. Ripping straight into ‘Those Damn Blue Collar Tweekers’, ’SJT Baker’ and ’Too Many Puppies‘ straight off the bat, it was clear that these guys were not mucking around. A massive start to what we as going to be a cracking set.
Claypool is undoubtedly one of the best bass players I have ever seen play live. His hands glide over the strings effortlessly, steering the band in weird and wonderful directions with ease during songs such as ‘Frizzle Fry’ and ‘Candyman’. Surprisingly though, he is far from carrying the rest of the band, with Larry absolutely shredding on the Guitar and Tim ‘Herb’ Alexander killing it on the drums, proving that all these years later, their talent has not wavered in the slightest.
Claypool still embraces the strange as much as he did back in the ’90s, while there may not be full stage costumes like there were back on the day, he did pull out a half head pig mask while playing his electric upright double bass for ‘Mr Krinkle’, with his hair whipping from underneath the mask, accompanied by the film clip visuals flashing up on the screens behind him. Strange indeed.
By this point one thing was definitely clear, that the punters here tonight are true fans of the band, singing along enthusiastically word for word, and positively losing it when songs like ‘Winona’s Big Brown Beaver’ and ‘My Name Is Mud’ were played. There were a few overzealous punters, however, getting a little rough in the pit and throwing things onstage, which is quite shocking considering the demographic of, ahem, somewhat older punters present on the night. Luckily Les gave a few stern words on the subject and the dudes responsible for this bottom end behaviour were swiftly shown the door.
The set wrapped up with an absolutely massive rendition of ‘Welcome To This World’, followed by ‘Over The Electric Grapevine’. With the crowd chanting the all too familiar “Primus Sucks, Primus Sucks!”, the band appeared back on stage for the encore of ‘Groundhogs Day’ followed by the epic ‘Here Come The Bastards’
As a very happy, sweaty crowd filed out of the ball room it was quite clear that we had witnessed some exceptional live music in Brisbane tonight.
Reviewer and Photographer : Chrissy Kavalieros
PRIMUS
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DEAN WEEN GROUP
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