With the release of their eclectic new album, La Cucaracha, and a healthy touring schedule (which is business as usual for the Ween boys), Ween is getting the kind of recognition that they’ve been due for years…or should I say decades.

I first heard Ween on Spring Break, a couple years into college (it’s a little hazy), it was probably ’93 since the album came out in November of ’92. Dewey Enderle was playing it one morning as we sipped coffee at our campsite in the dunes of Port St. Joe, Florida. I was shocked, amazed, and hooked and I’ve been ‘brown’ ever since.

That said, I had been a little skeptical about Ween’s live show after hearing some bootleggy stuff and seeing them at Bonnaroo last summer (bad view, bad stage, during the day), and forgetting how good the show was when I say them after the White Pepper album in 2000. I thought nothing could ever top the show that I saw in ’96 in support of their 12 Golden Country Greats album, during which their band was made up of old grizzled (and amazing) Nashville session players who not only played the country songs from the album, but also played crazyness like ‘Poop Ship Destroyer’ and ‘Dr. Rock’. What a band that was!

But as it turns out, Ween turned me out on Friday at the new Terminal 5 venue in Manhattan, which everyone says is shite, but we had no problems with. It sounded great and the view was great from the 3rd balcony. My guess is that it sucks down on the floor with all the kids. The setlist was top-notch, starting the show with ‘Exactly Where I’m At’ and closing with a four-song encore that ended with a full drunken-crowd sing-along to ‘The Blarney Stone’. Some of my crews’ other highlights of the night were ‘Baby Bitch’, ‘Mr. Richard Smoker’, ‘Zoloft’, ‘The Stallion Pt. 5′, and ‘Strap On That Jammy Pac’.

Click on through to the other side for a rowdy ‘Blarney Stone’ video that I took and more words…

I was amazed at Ween’s precision as a band, especially knowing that they play different sets every night. I think they only repeated one song (‘Fiesta’) in their two-night stand at Manhattan’s Terminal 5. Drummer Claude Coleman seems to keep the band on their toes constantly. In two-and-a-half hours of show, with no set break, I never heard mistake one…and I spent most of that time either singing along or banging my head in between big-old gulps of beer. Songs like ‘Booze Me Up and Get Me High‘ during the encore had us feeling extra thirsty even though the show was just about over, and Matt made a quick trip to the bar for four more beers, and just in time for the rowdy drunken ‘Blarney Stone‘ singalong encore! Cheers!

 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcI6vPeswW8&rel=1]

And here’s a bonus video of ‘Piss Up A Rope’…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eOm97VB7Hs&rel=1]

Filed in Music, Photos, Picture Pages on Monday, December 3, 2007 · 1 Comment »