Primus at Sno-Core '98 concert review

by Lauren.

San Jose Event Centre, San Jose, CA. February 10, 1998.


The bands went in this order: The Aquabats, which I thought were really cool. They were wearing these trippy costumes with red shorts, skintight black shirts, strange little helmet thingies like the kind those bi-plane flyers wore back in the day, and white belts with a little character on it (an aquabat?) There were a bunch of people in that band, and they had to play on a stage that was crammed with equipment from all the other bands, so they didn't have much room to move. The lead singer kept spitting on the audience... The music was cool. The played the song Superad, which was the only song I was familiar with. But they had great energy and I thoroughly enjoyed them.

Then came the Long Beach Dub All-Stars. I didn't like them much. All they really did was play a bunch of long boring songs and smoke weed, which I don't find impressive. Brad Nowells' dog was running around the stage....that was pretty neat. I didn't stay to hear the rest of them.

After that was Blink 182. I hadn't heard much of them, aside what I usually hear on the radio. I thought they were pretty awesome. The guitarist kept cracking a lot of jokes about the bass player, saying he had 'the skills that pay the bills, the dick that does the trick, the gonorrea to give you diarrhea, and the herpes that make you laugh' He also kept talking about the bass players genitalia, and how good he thought he looked drenched in sweat, and licking asses. They were pretty vulgar, but it was still pretty funny.

Then came Primus (finally) They opened with Groundhogs Day, and then played in no particular order Damn Blue Collar Tweekers/Highball with the Devil, Frizzle Fry, Kalamazoo, Mud (including a story about his Uncle Al(?) who lives in the South Bay and used to take a lot of Methamphetamines and likes the song Les does where it sounds like he has a bunch of mud in his mouth) Tommy the Cat/Awakening on the Fender Jazz Bass. Seas of Cheese(before that he delighted the audience when he sat there dragging the bow across it for a few minuted, jamming I guess) A really funky version of Too Many Puppies that I didn't even recognize until he started singing, Duchess and the Proverbial Mind Spread, Coddingtown, Pudding Time, and ended with Jerry was a Racecar Driver. Before playing that, they came back out onstage and said "well, we were backstage debating on which song we should play, and we're having a tough time deciding on Southbound Pachyderm, or Jerry. So we thought we'd ask you, and since we don't have enough time to hand out ballots and count your votes, so we'll do it like this. Pacyderm? (croud cheers) or Jerry (croud cheers louder) I was really looking forward to playing Pachyderm, but you had to have your hit. You and your goddamn radio hits!!" And then they played it.

I forgot to mention when Les said "Ladies and Gentlemen, Brain" and Brain did a fat solo. Not as good as the others I've seen him do, but still pretty damn impressive. Ler yelled "stop" in Tommy the Cat, which suprised me cuz I've never heard him say anything. At one pint during a song (I can't remember which one) Ler used a Corona bottle as a slide briefly and set it back on his monitor.


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