Jay About Primus doing Wonka!

So last night I met up w/ some buddies to check out Primus at the Flynn Theater. We had heard that they were doing a set of Willy Wonka tunes. I would start by saying I am a huge fan of both Primus and the original Willy Wonka film. It was an odd venue in the theater though as it is staffed by old people who are used to Cuban/Norwegian fusion camber flute music and who very much frown on movement in the venue. Primus is pretty intense and often sees a pretty aggressive movement from the crowd. The one Primus concert I have seen that I did not enjoy was purely due to a shitty venue, Memorial Auditorium, which sucks bad. Well after some pretty solid wings and a couple of beers at RJ's we prepared for battle. It was a mob scene of dudes in their 30s. Needless to say it was tough to get a beer. Once inside the venue we got to our seats and settled in.

Primus steamed through a great set of classics. Nice energy, tight playing, and what you come to see and expect. Intermission was a train wreck. The Flynn was not prepared for a mostly male, fired up crowd and the beer line was ridiculous. It was slow and archaic. By the time I finally got a beer the band was back at it so I had to chug it and get back in. The second set itself was insane. The set was done like the chocolate room complete with a couple huge mushrooms. My one bone to pick was that the shrooms in the movie are flat and these ones looked more like a couple spotted dicks. How weird was the Wonka set? Well, the lights and audio visual set up featured scenes from the movie distorted and teased out in a pretty mind bending way. The music was dark and haunting. And for the Oompa Loompa songs the two things above came out and silently bobbed up and down in a disconcerting way.  I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. The xylophone player and the cello player were both very good.

The encore was 2 great oldies that packed a ton of power. I particularly enjoyed Here Come the Bastards... though the Monkey face video was freaky as shit.

2 thumbs up. I like it a little weird w/ Primus and they delivered.