London
7 September 2000
Ween are one of those bands who embody the indie dream, the American Dream even. Starting out as lo-fi geeks with too much time, dope and a four track recorder on their hands, they turned their undoubted talents to warped and wonderful ends over the last ten years, from cult act to near-classic rock inheritors of the dubious mantles of both Butthole Surfers and the Grateful Dead. So they don’t quite have the twisted evil natures of the former, nor the hippy twiddles of the latter, but that’s all probably for the best after all. Nope, Gene and Dean Ween are good blokes on a mission to the heart of onstage excess and what might loosely be called a good time.
The Astoria is the venue for the last show of a gruelling tour of three-hour sets, and when the duo and their sidemen come on, it’s to an auditorium which rapidly fills from the bars and t-shirt stalls with all manner of indie-rock survivors and newbies alike. The place is soon packed and the barefoot Weensters make their opening moves in a welter of smoke machine fun and crowd-surfing. They’ve always been fond of songs of almost throwaway offensiveness — “HIV”, “Spinal Meningitis Gets Me Down” and “ReggaeJunkieJew” to name but three played tonight, to varying degrees of speed-frenzy thrash and louche virtuosity alike. Some of their older material like “Dr Rock” or “Baby Bitch” sounds weird with a full band behind them, and perhaps that was part of the fascination of these New Hope dropouts made good — their irrepressible drive to churn out effective songs, no matter what the limitations of the equipment to hand.
So they have become what they sometimes promised, or threatened: proper post-underground rock stars, a band where an audience of a thousand people can sing along to every line of a staggeringly-soloed “Buenos Tardes Amigo” or the slinky boogie funk of “Voodoo Lady”; geezers with celebrity friends like fellow deviant invaders of the mainstream Trey Parker and Matt Stone to make their videos. All well and good for them, good for their fans, but something’s gone a tad too professional along the way. But if they hadn’t done it in their last decade of hard work — which surely does also give the lie to the lazy legend of slackerdom — they’d still be in the squat with a jammy pack of butane, waiting for the day when they’d be up there on the stage, giving it all they’ve undoubtedly got like the eternal return of the unrepressed inner 12-year old with a long memory for rock trivia that they seemingly embody.
No, Ween have made it, and made it like they probably should — loud and funny, swapping jokes (Gene gets a mandolin out , and says how they were going to get Jimmy Page on for the song) and slapping hands with the front row. There’s still enough demented glee to the county rock inversions of “Mr Won’t You Please Help My Pony” or “Piss Up A Rope” to justify the time it takes for them to wrench the last emotional hook from the synth-steels; even the mock Oirish monstrosity “The Blarney Stone” sounds pretty good as Ween try to get into Pogues mood, thanks to the judicious application of volume. But it’s when they bring out the aquatic psychedelia of “The Mollusk”, “Buckingham Green” and the stupendous stomp of “Ocean Man” that the boys really shine.
Any show this long will have its less engaging moments too, but when they reach for the jet-propelled, geetar and megaphone sky, they really can take the roof off in their own peculiar way. Naturally, they conclude the event with their favourite live murdering of the already flatulent “Poop Ship Destroyer”, a piece which strips away the layers of gloss and brings it all back to their most basic abilities to make some noise and take it to the illogical extreme. Where they take it from here remains to be seen, but they may have just about established themselves as the oddest band on the planet ever to be ready for the stadium…
-John Palukha-
