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| Puscifer / Luchafer (Mat Mitchell, Paul Barker, Jeff Friedl, Carina Round) (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
What did I witness last night? I'm still asking myself that question today.
For those of us at Oakland's Fox Theater for Puscifer's sold out concert last night, we were treated to something I can easlily say I've never seen in my 25+ years of concerts...
In lieu of an opening band, we were treated to a lucha libre pre-show wrestling match by 'Luchafer', complete with a wrestling ring that took up much of the stage. Should I have been surprised? Probably not. This, of course, was coming from the mind of Maynard James Keenan, the lead vocalist and creative glue behind bands such as A Perfect Circle, Tool and his most recent troupe, Puscifer. The band's incorporated lucha libres into their first three videos from the recent release of Money $hot (iTunes), so it shouldn't have come as a surprise that they'd feature prominently throughout their live performance too.
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| Luchafer (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
In terms of the music, the band could have easily stood on stage without any of the surrounding performance art and the crowd would have still been blown away.
This is a band made up of absolutely incredible musicians including:
- Mat Mitchell - guitar (producer / engineer / songwriter)
- Jeff Friedl - drums (A Perfect Circle / Beta Machine)
- Mahsa Zargaran - keys / background vox
- Paul Barker - bass (Ministry / Lead Into Gold)
- Carina Round - co-lead vox
- Maynard James Keenan - co-lead vox
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| Mat Mitchell, Paul Barker, Jeff Friedl of Puscifer (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
The ensemble shined brightest with their performance of "Grand Canyon." Carina and Maynard's haunting vocals layered with Mat's pulsing guitar, Jeff's driving kick, Paul's fuzzy bass, and Mahsa's atmospheric synth were extraordinary -- just try and imagine the video below at 120db while you're surrounded, standing mesmorized with 3000 of your closest friends.
The show was fantastic and with only four shows left on the current tour schedule, your options are extremely limited if you still want to catch their live show! And in case you missed it, be sure to check out our interview with Paul Barker here.
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| Carina Round (Photo: Kevin Keating) |
