well for some reason les claypool has turned into the music of choice for lots of metal dudes and ladies in columbus (including cameron from 7-11!). even a lot of nondescript people who probably didn't like metal were hanging around for the last show. swell. anyway the guy who opened was called ralph carney and he sounded kind of like a jam band art ensemble of chicago with lyrics by dean ween. maybe. he was pretty funny, especially when singing about the lighter side of benito mussolini and donald rumsfeld, and he played a lot of instruments with significant talent.

apologies for the amateurish writing i am displaying so far in this review, but i am not getting paid for this and hence am an amateur by definition (but not a sexy young amateur girl next door. sorry.). well les claypool played and he played damn fine as usual, opening up with a cover of pink floyd's "shine on you crazy diamond" in his jam/funk/jazz/metal style. eenor was not playing guitars this time, but the large cowboy man did fine as a replacement. awesome percussion jam between the drummer and second percussionist. the show in general flowed very well and the improvisational skill of the musicians prevented the tedium that sometimes occurs when a band plays the same songs that are on the records. other than the immortal les, skerik's sax is probably the best example. catch his new side project (the syncopated taint septet) if you get the chance. claypool for president.