Concert Review: Coheed & Cambria and Primus

Fans braved the rain Monday night (08.05.24) at Blossom Music Center to see Coheed and Cambria, along with Primus, get weird on their dual headliner tour. The bands are touring together, each one playing what would normally be one half of a full setlist, with Coheed playing first and Primus closing the night. 

And weird it got! After a 30-minute rain delay, the show opened with a two-song setlist by New York’s Too Many Zoos, a three-piece featuring drums, trumpet, and sax. Sweating in the muggy August heat, they ripped through two all-instrumental songs. The saxophonist wore 80s sunglasses and rocked a pink mullet, really stealing the show as he danced across the stage.

Before the show started, an audience member told me he had been getting off the subway in New York recently, and Too Many Zoos were performing at the subway stop. They brought that frenetic, busking energy Monday night as well. They definitely sound like a band that one would not only expect to see playing in the subway but also a band that owns that vibe. 

Coheed and Cambria is known for their concept albums that take place in a dystopian future. Their songs operate as soundtracks to comics that are also written in part by lead singer Claudio Sanchez.

Many of their songs are epics with long metal-inspired orchestration. In fact, they opened with 2003’s epic “In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3,” a personal favorite and 8-minute song. Sanchez waved his massive signature curls through the air. Because of the length of their tunes and the double headliner setup, they only played a total of 10 songs. Maybe that’s why the setlist felt so tight and succinct, even with songs like “The Willing Well I: Fuel for the Feeding End” lasting over seven minutes. There was no filler to be found. A highlight of the set was, without a doubt, Sanchez shredding a double-neck guitar on the closing song, “Welcome Home,” a scene reminiscent of early metal bands. 

While neither band had much time for banter, guitarist and founding member, Travis Stever, did tell the crowd that Ohio was special to Coheed, explaining that some of the early shows they played when they were first touring, some 25 years ago, and how they found themselves “sleeping on amps” in Ohio. It lent a fun perspective to the now-polished prog-rock group. 

If Coheed’s set was succinct, then one might call Primus’s set contemplative, and where the culmination of the weirdness took place. The Les Claypool-fronted act got spacey on songs like “My Friend Fats” and “Frizzle Fry.” Giant screens behind the band played visuals in the band’s aesthetic, like people in giant Western costumes and monkey masks. Another weird and fun part of the show was Claypool coming on stage in a pig mask and playing an electric stand-up bass with a violin bow on “Mr Krinkle.”

At one point early in the set, Claypool dedicated the song to a crowd member up front who was wearing a hot dog costume, playfully asking the rest of the crowd where their dedication was. It looked for a minute like the hot dog was going to cry tears of joy. Again, though, there wasn’t time for banter, even when Claypool messed up near the end of “Nature Boy,” both he and the crowd catching the error and having a quick laugh before moving on. No, it was a fast-moving set, trying to focus more on the songs. The crowd also seemed to be having fun, though, using the few brief quiet moments to shout the catchphrase “Primus sucks,” one the band is known for. Because of the rain delay, there was no encore. Instead, after the more contemplative set, they closed with three crowd-pleasers in quick succession, “Jerry Was a Racecar Driver,” “My Name is Mud,” and “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver.” 

One might be wondering how these two acts fit together for a co-headlining tour, but those doubts were put to rest when Coheed’s frontman came on stage in dark robes, holding a skull, and picking up some of the vocals during Primus’ cover of the Rush song “Cygnus X-1.” Rush is, of course, the perfect crossover of influence for both bands in their nerdy, experimental metal sound. 

On this Monday night, it was perhaps another thing these two bands have in common: their outlier status and how they are both traditionally yet inaccurately lumped in with other acts of their respective eras. Primus is often referenced with grunge and nu-metal acts of the mid-90s and Coheed with emo bands of the early 2000s. It’s true that both bands share elements of those genres, but both also don’t quite fit neatly into any category. They both have paved their own ways, telling their own weird stories, creating their own universes, and even their own art styles and aesthetics. That’s why it was such a delight to see both bands together like this, each a nice compliment to the other.