6/22/00 - Thursday, Irving Plaza, New York, NY

https://archive.org/details/db2000-06-22.akg391.1644

source: archive.org

Easily the strangest show of the year is this very short performance for the Jammy Awards in New York. The short setlist consists of four songs, all covers, all new to the repertoire. The show opens with Franz Schubert’s Opus 90, a lengthy and intricate classical composition. Les Claypool comes up after Opus 90 and the band runs through a cover of Riddles Are Abound Tonight by Claypool’s band Sausage (which, as far as I can tell, is just another name for the original lineup of Primus). There are a few minutes of amorphous inchoate Biscuits-esque improv in the final minutes, but otherwise this is a pretty straight run-through. After Riddles, the band launches into a rendition of Pink Floyd’s Have a Cigar. Magner does a respectable job on vox, and after the song the band launches into a tense outro jam. A mellow trance jam with Claypool vocal teases builds to a chaotic frenzy. Moments of brilliance shine through the chaos. Barber’s playing immediately prior to the segue is particularly inspired. The jam segues into Tomorrow Never Knows by the Beatles. The jamming is particularly aimless until shortly after the Reba teases, when it breaks down into a symphonic groove as Claypool sings the closing verses of Tomorrow Never Knows. The song closes with some ambient and psychedelic noise jamming. Included as a bonus on this version is the announcement of the 1999 Jam of the Year award, which goes to… The Disco Biscuits, for their Akira Jam.

A bizarre show and probably the most optional of the year. It’s worth hearing for the notability factor, and the Tomorrow Never Knows is nice and weird with some cool moments of brilliance.

Stray Observations:
Of the four covers debuted at this show, only Schubert’s Opus 90 was not played again. Riddles was played at both Crisman shows, 6/27 and 7/12, before being shelved permanently. Tomorrow Never Knows was shelved until Langerado 08, and was played once after that. Have A Cigar was played the most out of the four. It was shelved until 06 when it began appearing a few times a year, often with guest sit-ins, and was most recently performed on 2/7/09 with Warren Haynes.

This is perhaps the only show the band has ever played (excluding the first show ever) in which every song is a debut (cover or otherwise).

Barber says the Opus 90 is a song that he had wanted to play for a long time.

The Have a Cigar outro features Hello Skinny and The Wondrous Boatride vocal teases. Hello Skinny was a song by the Residents, but was also featured as a bonus track on Primus's Frizzle Fry, and the Wondrous Boatride was from the Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory film, an obsession of Claypool’s.

Tomorrow Never Knows features vocal teases of Reba (Phish) and Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin).

—Andy