By: Matt Lambert
It was a chilly rainy spring night in Boston at the Boch Center Wang Theatre. Maynard James Keenan’s who turns 60th this year planned a celebratory occasion, he organized a tour with his friends Primus and two of his bands that aren’t Tool; A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. They had a set up where there were no traditional headliners and each band would get a turn playing and rotate throughout the whole night. Many antics were had, from a game of ping pong, to rock-n-sock em’ robots. While most of the band, while not playing, sat around on couches watching the rest of the show themselves.
As it was a MJK centric night, he was on vocals for a large part of the show, with Primus action in between Puscifer and A Perfect Circle. Puscifer, while being a little lighter than the other two bands musically, were my favorite. Their music features wonderful harmonies between Corin Rounds and MJK, all while they chased each other back and forth across the stage during some of the songs. A Perfect Circle were extremely tight as a band, featuring the newly hired Foo Fighters drummer Josh Freese, (whose resume also includes The Vandals, Guns N’ Roses and Devo) and Smashing Pumpkins guitarist James Iha.
Primus may have had the least amount of stage time but everything they played was quality. Including their biggest hits “My name is Mud,” and “Jerry was a racecar driver.”
The final three songs were the new songs on the recently released Sessanta E.P.P.P. that has a song from each band that has contributions from Keenan himself.
Les Claypool wore a pig mask for the last song “Grand Canyon” that featured everyone on stage simultaneously.
I was pleased to see this show as I had never seen any of the bands before. It was a perfect combination of music to celebrate a modern rock legend's milestone birthday (April 17th to be exact.) Catch the show throughout the month of April.