Brace Yourself, Twin Cities, Primus and Mastodon are Coming

Last updated on July 28th, 2019 at 02:17 pm

In a summer filled with great shows, stacked festivals, and plenty of reasons to seek out strange and wonderous entertainment, the co-headlining tour of prog rock legends Primus and heavy metal giants Mastodon is a quirky highlight.

The tour will make its stop at the Myth Live on June 14th, and the venue is the perfect size to expand your Primus/Mastadon fandom. These are two loud bands that are sure to fill the room with energy. No matter where you are on the floor, you’ll be close enough to understand the unique talent that is Les Claypool, and you will witness the accessible metal attitude that Mastodon exudes.

Jjuujjuu, an up and coming California band, will open the show with just the right touch of humor and ambient rock. They’re long hair, poncho-clad, good-times oriented set is a sonic and aesthetic fit for the show.

Even though the tour is billed as co-headlining, Mastodon has conceded to play first at every stop, rather than flip-flopping the bill as most co-tours have done. Do not be fooled by this fact, Mastodon are no ‘openers.’ They will rock a full set, playing bangers from every album in their canon, with a focus on the new Emperor of Sand, and will surely satisfy new fans and die-hard devotees alike. Their no-frills, make-it-fast-and-loud presentation, coupled with the blacklight eyeball of the drum kit will put a smile on your face as you headbang along.

One of the reasons Mastodon has allowed Primus to close the show may be that Primus has elected to play their new album, The Desaturating Seven, in its entirety. So buckle up. The record, which is a concept album based on a strange children’s book about goblins who steal the color out of the world, is more of a building, slow burn than an arena rocker. Couple that with the fact that most fans are not yet as familiar with tracks like “The Trek,” which is sure to become a Primus staple, and you may have some “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver” fans who could be disappointed.

Primus has been playing the album in the middle of their set, bookending it with abbreviated hits and medleys of some of the best stuff of their career. They know what they are doing. Primus has never been a band that was concerned with appeasement (after all, they released an album called Anti-Pop in the middle of the boy-band-laden 90s), and the show is still a great time. It’s a happy moment to see Tim Alexander back behind the drumset (even if it means tracks from the Bryan Mantia era are excluded from this tour). Claypool still has his quirky, suspicious glee, and Larry Lalonde brings his understated guitar excellence in vast quantities, especially during some of the more quiet moments of the new tracks.

So do your homework, pregame by familiarizing yourself with Jjuujjuu, The Desaturating Seven, and Emperor of Sand. Then put on you metal shoes, tell your mom your spending the night at Dale’s house, and get down to The Myth.