I just got back from a long, long trip to central Europe. It was an amazing time but it’s good to back home again. There’s alot to unpack, literally and figuratively, so it’ll take a few posts to get thru it all.
For now, rewinding a bit, the day before we left I saw Claypool Lennon Delirium at the Capital Theatre in Port Chester. The nucleus of the band is Les Claypool of Primus fame and Sean Lennon, son of John and Yoko, doing joyous psychedelic rock with a group rounded out by a keyboardist (synth, clav and mellotron) and an excellent drummer. Les and Sean split the lead vocals and the arrangements included lots of vocal harmonies and a good balance of melodies and jamming. They did mostly originals, but to give you an idea of their sound, the three covers they did were Astronomy Domine by Pink Floyd, In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson, and Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles, all of which they really made into their own.
I know Les Claypool best from his work with Primus, and of course the music for South Park, but I haven’t heard from him in a while. He’s a wildly creative bass player, and his style has evolved and matured alot to be less of a lead instrument taking up all the available space, and more fitting into to the groove in various ways, simultaneously anchoring and going beyond, but still sounding very much like him. Sean is a really good guitar player. He plays a Strat with a whammy bar and uses alot of tone and and phrasing bends in his solos, so I’d compare him to someone like David Gilmour. But he’s also capable of fast shredding riffs. He doesn’t use it like a metal guy though; he has in own thing going. In any event the two of them have great synergy and the whole show and the music was just fantastic.
Co-headlining with CLD was The Flaming Lips, who were not at the same level musically, although they opened with a rendition of Also Sprach Zarathustra, which was a promising start. The singer had an annoying habit of interrupting himself to demand the audience make more noise. Still they were fun and notable for their use of giant inflatable props, and they seemed to have something of a cult following.