Colonel Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade Take Psychedelic Flight in Oregon (SHOW REVIEW/PHOTOS)

Perhaps it’s the nostalgia that comes in later age, but the last few years have found Les Claypool obsessed with revisiting and recreating the music of his idols. The renowned bassist convened his main band Primus around a massive tour that included a full album cover of Rush’s A Farewell to Kings. Now, Claypool has reunited his beloved Fearless Flying Frog Brigade for a tour that includes a sandwiched performance of Pink Floyd’s 1977 album Animals. Clearly, Les has been feeling reflective and is looking to share that state of mind with his fans, who will gleefully lap up whatever he chooses to do. Of course, this tour is something of a double trip down memory lane as it marks the first time the Frog Brigade has toured together since 2003. All of this is cause for celebration, and on Sunday, July 9th, Colonel Claypool brought that celebration to the McMenamins Grande Lodge in Forest Grove, Oregon for one of the last stops on this leg of the extensive summer tour. 

These days the aptly named guitarist Ripley Johnson can usually be found playing with his cosmic country outfit the Rose City Band, but he has briefly returned to the space-psych outfit Moon Duo to open a handful of shows for the Frog Brigade. Donning their signature all-white outfits, the group delivered a set that was heavy on trance and droning grooves that felt ambient and spaced out at times as they made their way through songs like “Flying,” “The World and the Sun,” “Night Beat” and “Fever Night.” Johnson let his guitar weave around the synths of Sanae Yamada while John Jeffrey never let off his beat, proving to be the Duo’s secret weapon as they eased the audience into the night with a set that went from dreamy and mellow to euphoric and danceable.  

Despite their extended time off, being six weeks in to this eight-week tour meant that the Frog Brigade was primed and ready when they hit the stage and dropped immediately into the funkified psych-prog-blues of “The Buzzards of Green Hill.” Though the lineup is reconfigured for this tour and finds saxophone player Skerik absent for medical reasons, any question about its strength was dismissed as Sean Lennon laid into a slide guitar descent only to be matched by the unctuous organ work of Harry Waters. “Amanitas” found Claypool grabbing the spotlight with his dark and squiggly bass lines, while “David Makalaster” was a notable early standout as a wonky and sinister march that found Mike Dillon blasting off into xylophone space and Claypool laying down bass work that was thick as molasses, even teasing the Primus tune “Southbound Pachyderm.” Throughout the night, the sound felt muffled and the fans let this be known with frequent callouts even though it was clearly a choice from the venue. Before the band got into their performance of Animals, Lennon led the band in the complex and mysterious work of psychedelic power pop “Blood and Rockets: Movement I, Saga of Jack Parsons – Movement II Too the Moon.”

Much like he did with Primus when covering Rush’s A Farewell to Kings, Claypool chose to stay faithful to this Pink Floyd classic. Of course, his distinctive bass was a constant presence and Lennon was able to grab more than his fair share of impressive guitar solos, but for the most part the band executed the album close to the original. Where they excelled in the performance was in their ability to lean masterfully into the nuance and slow-building suspense of the album’s compositional nature as a whole. One of the standout moments came when Lennon talk a talk box solo on “Pigs (Three Different Ones)” to add an extra layer of trippiness to the song. After the journey through Animals, Claypool moved offstage and returned wearing his demented pig mask for the dark carnival madness of “Precipitation” that felt like the aural equivalent of tumbling in a washing machine with an element of grunge and one of Dillon’s wildest xylophone solos of the evening. “Hendershot” found the band bringing together elements of skate punk, ska and swing for a dastardly delight, while Waters let his B3 organ talents shine on a surf rock instrumental. Two of the biggest highlights of the night came at the tail end with “D’s Diner” taking the audience into a world of demented culinary chaos that veered from a lounge-y jazz jam to a punk blowout closer. This was followed up by Claypool wearing his disco ball helmet and banging his amplified pipe on its jam-heavy namesake “Whamola.”    

Though the show felt at times subdued because of the lower sound, it still carried all of the hallmarks that make any Les Claypool performance stand out. Beyond that, Claypool allowed his band mates shine throughout the evening and often seemed content to simply hold down the pocket in more of a traditional bass player style. Combined with the choice to cover the Pink Floyd album, this marked yet another exciting chapter for an artist who – even while he gets reflective and nostalgic in his creative choices – has never stopped evolving. 

All photos by Greg Homolka