Primus - Are a real disappointment!

June 23rd 2015

London, Brixton Academy, UK

The chocolate has melted tonight in London!

Primus ** This show was billed as one not to be missed. The Alternative Metal band Primus titillated our taste buds with two sets at the London, Brixton Academy, one set of classic hits and the other a bizarre phantasma of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. On paper that sounds amazing, but when we opened the box of delights we only found empty wrappers with small elephants printed on them. This could have been avoided but for a few silly decisions, which made what was potentially one of the best shows of the year, into one of the most disappointing. Something you really wouldn't expect from the band that brought us amazing music for the animated naughty cartoon 'South Park', and have a great deal of success with their album over the years.

They open up their 'Greatest Hits' set with the Funky ‘Those damned blue-collar Tweekers', which is great in a distinctive way. So they did try to start things off with their own sort of eccentric panache. It may have worked well for the band if the audience could actually hear it properly, but it sounded really tinny. Although the original track was not absent of twangingly high Metal sounds, this was just way to faint, with way too much echo to make out. My slight disappointment kicked in early as it is one of the best tracks off the strangely titled 'Sailing the seas of Cheese', which if you where actually doing that... would be a very smelly thing indeed. The Primus is sound is what happens when you eat lots of cheese after midnight to induce bizarre dreams.

‘Last Salmon Man’ from 'Green Naugahyde' worked a little better for them. There is no denying Les Claypool has a unique brilliance on the bass. Wynona’s big Brown Beaver, could have retrieved things a little if it had been performed with a little more energy, but I started to find his bass ploddingly repetitive and lifeless. They didn’t make the venue work well for them. The lighting was dire. The dark tendrils of gloom from the stage seemed to seep into the audience and depress some of the crowd to the extent that a few fans left the show early. Primus’ signature primal rhythmic sound was unable to lift the mood set by the - gloomy, gloom, gloom, gloom, gloom, glum gloom, gloom, gloom, gloom glum gloom glum gloom, aesthetic. It really only sort of suited ‘Cheer up Charlie’ from the 'Chocolate Factory' set.

After the show I was told, some people were trying to get their money back, because of the band being so far back on the stage and the sound being really bad. I can totally understand the frustration with the fact the band where so far back. It made it difficult at times to see what was going on. The odd sweet decorating the stage, made the theme of the second set seem half hearted. When I first saw this during their first set, I thought that this was because they were moving things there for the second set. But that did not happen and the band just stayed in the same place. I found the whole evening a little sparse with a very light sprinkling of candy on top of a very dry cake iced with an atmospheric depression, which was barely brightened by the Umpa Lumpas, the so called highlight of the show. Think of the re-make of the film and not the original, but this show even made that look good... and I hated that.

When I first listened to their 'Primus and the chocolate Factory' album I was really taken by ‘Pure Imagination’ which is the most faithful to the original, and although this was the best song played during the second set it failed to sell the evening to me. For the life of me I don't know what elephants have to do with 'Charlie and the chocolate Factory', but there was a whole looped video sequence with jumping elephants on trampolines... looking like something more out of the Disney movie 'Dumbo'. Yes! I felt it was totally out of place and pointless, but Dezadie enjoyed it because she loves elephants, surrealism and nonsense. She felt these sequences were the best visual element of the show into which both 'Charlie and Chocolate Factory' and the music, was the interloper. She was so excited that she bought one of their elephant t-shirts from the foyer.

I was just left feeling bemused, and haunted by the images of the mad hatter on t-shirts on sale at the merch booth. I was a bit tempted by the chocolate bars on sale, but they were a little expensive. It did leave me thinking that could have livened up the show by ditching their gloomy pretension and throwing a few bars of their chocolate into the audience. They could have even included a golden ticket in one of those bars to give fans the opportunity to win a meet and great or some Primus goodies. They really is so much they could have done, but didn't. For people that had been waiting a long time, and spent a lot of money on their tickets... I just think would have been left a little angry which is a real shame. I still wait with eager ears to hear what Primus will do next, because I am sure it will be interesting and just a little strange.