By Andrew Bansal
July 29th 2016, Fonda Theatre, Hollywood CA: The Claypool Lennon Delirium, a brand new collaboration between Les Claypool and Sean Lennon, formed in 2015, released its debut album ‘Monolith Of Phobos’ earlier this year, and embarked on an extensive North American headline tour to present this material on stages all over the continent, for the first time. The band, along with touring support act Jjuujjuu, arrived to a capacity crowd at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood for a gig on Friday July 29th 2016. For those that hadn’t listened to the album, The Claypool Lennon Delirium was expected to unite the best of the Primus and Beatles worlds. It turned out to be that, and so much more, as attendees were treated to a memorable concert experience.
Doors opened promptly at 8 PM, and an hour later, Los Angeles-based quartet Jjuujjuu took the stage for 40 minutes of their brand of psychedelia-infused krautrock, decorated sonically by fuzzy, echoey tones and visually by exotic stage costumes. Not that the writer speaks from any personal experience, but this band’s music is the kind you would imagine spinning in your head whilst on an acid trip. Jjuujjuu’s trippy jams went down well with this audience which seemed like mentally and physically ready for this concert in every sense. The band released their debut EP ‘Frst’ in 2013 and a new single called ‘Bleck’ in 2016, and through tours such as this one, in front of totally appropriate audiences, Jjuujjuu are well on their way towards capturing more and more listeners into rapid spirals of mind explosions. Despite the strange name and even stranger spelling, Jjuujuu will catch on.
And at 10 o’ clock, The Claypool Lennon Delirium arrived on stage, to not only play a set that lasted nearly two hours and comprised all but the entirety of the 11-track, 50-minute ‘Monolith Of Phobos’ debut LP, but also gave the audience tastes of some of Claypool and Lennon’s own different projects of the past and present, and included some carefully selected cover tunes as well. In theory, even though a supergroup-type collaboration is supposed to combine the talents of the musicians involved and fuse the best qualities of the bands they come from, it hardly ever materializes in that manner, and most supergroups fail to impress. But, The Claypool Lennon Delirium succeeds, call it a tasteful Beatles-Primus mashup, or a Claypool-led funkadelic twist to the Beatles-esque musicality of Sean Lennon.
TCLD jumbled the order in which the tracks appear on the album, and blended in their renditions of ‘Up On The Roof’, a cover of Claypool’s Frog Brigade, ‘Animals’ from Lennon’s project The Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger, a Primus cover to end the set, and even Pink Floyd and Beatles tunes thrown in for good measure and presented to perfection. The entire performance held the audience in a trance, as both Claypool and Lennon were able to freely express themselves on an individual as well as collective basis. Their varied vocal talents were brought to the forefront, as was their instrumental genius on bass and guitar respectively. The two other members on drums and keyboards helping the main duo perform these songs on stage came across as no slouches either. The tunes ‘Ohmerica’ and ‘Oxycontin Girl’ stood out as the highlights amongst the original material, and the band’s versions of Pink Floyd’s ‘Astronomy Domine’ and The Beatles’ ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ took the audience to a different universe. Altogether it was a mind-bending experience of overwhelming proportions, as many in the crowd wondered whether they were watching Sean Lennon or a ghost of his father, and people that grew up listening to the Beatles would have perhaps never imagined that decades later, John Lennon’s offpsring would join forces with the main dude from Primus. The sheer concept of the project is as mind-boggling as the music itself, and both these qualities were fully evident throughout this set, as the audience gazed in pure awe.
Les Claypool’s projects have mostly been shortlived in the past, and whether TCLD is another one-album, one-off effort or not remains to be seen. Some in attendance would say this was the most powerful concert experience they’ve had in a while, and it would be hard to argue with that. This is a must-see and must-listen for fans of all anything and everything sonically stoner, psychedelic, fuzz, doom and funk. The Claypool Lennon Delirium lives up to its magnitude and hype, and then some.
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Set List:
01. Cricket and the Genie (Movement I, The Delirium)
02. Cricket and the Genie (Movement II, Oratorio Di Cricket)
03. Breath of a Salesman
04. The Monolith of Phobos
05. Up on the Roof (The Les Claypool Frog Brigade cover)
06. Boomerang Baby
07. Animals (The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger cover)
08. Mr. Wright
09. Bubbles Burst
10. Ohmerica
11. Oxycontin Girl
12. Astronomy Domine (Pink Floyd cover)
13. Captain Lariat
14. Tomorrow Never Knows (The Beatles cover)
Encore:
15. In the Court of the Crimson King (King Crimson cover)
16. Southbound Pachyderm (Primus cover)
Remaining Tour Dates:
08/11/2016 – Detroit, MI @ Majestic Theatre
08/12/2016 – Columbus, OH @ Express Live! Indoor Pavilion
08/13/2016 – Scranton, PA @ Peach Fest
08/25/2016 – Buffalo, NY @ Canalside
08/26/2016 – Boston, MA @ House of Blues Boston
08/27/2016 – New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall
08/28/2016 – Portland, ME @ State Theatre
08/30/2016 – New York, NY @ Irving Plaza
08/31/2016 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore
09/01/2016 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
09/03/2016 – Chicago, IL @ Union Park (North Coast Music Festival)