Primus And Gogol Bordello At Red Rocks

The Primus/Gogol Bordello show was awesome!  The stadium benches were set at such a steep slant that we could see the Denver skyline above the stage; Denver at night with all it’s twinkly lights.  We were assigned seats but ended up camping out at one of the side areas that had been planted with trees…better to dance, you see.  I’ve loved Eugene, the lead singer for Gogol Bordello, ever since I saw him as Elijah Wood’s Ukrainian tour guide in Everything Is Illuminated; he’s hilarious and absolutely steals the show; and again in the Ukrainian gypsy music documentary, The Pied Piper of Herzovinia.  Plus, they have an awesome fiddle player…skinny guys with violins always steal my heart.

Primus used the natural rock backdrop of the stage for a neon lunar lightshow and had two large blow-up space suits on both sides of the stage.  They had various images projected onto the “glass pieces” of the helmets.  As I have been bad lately and never where my glasses, I have little idea of what the images were but Dan and I shared his glasses for a while and I did see some dancing skeletons projected up there.  I have never heard of Primus before Conner came along so I have no idea what they played or how this show measures up against other shows, but geez, they were great!  The band had arranged to have the show streamed on their website and I’m sure that you can find it still up there.  Apparently it’s de rigueur that the lead singer/bassist, Les Claypool plays a segment wearing an animal mask while playing a one-stringed bass that he made.  So he played his one stringed bass for us at Red Rocks wearing a monkey mask, and of course we all loved it.

On the way home, tipsy off of too many $7.00 beers, Jena, Dustin, Conner, Dan, and I all stopped at Wendy’s which we all downed without conversation the rest of the way home and it was the best damn Wendy’s I’ve ever eaten.  Of course.  But the next morning when the heart burn finally woke me up well, that’s when Johnny Cash’s “Sunday Morning Sidewalk” kicks on in my head and I make vows I rarely keep, ‘Never, never again will I eat fast food at 2 in the morning…’