The band was on a summer leg of that reunion tour at Meadowbrook Music Festival and provided the usual funk-rock sound, with something uncharacteristic for hard rock: jam sessions.

Meadowbrook is a weird place for a band like Primus to be playing, but the serene atmosphere provided a good antithesis to Primus’ styling. Wow, do I get a quarter for putting that sentence together? The band split up the show into two sets: The first being focused in on early 90’s tunes; such as “These Damned Blue Collar Tweakers” and classic “Jerry was a Race Car Driver”. The 55 minute first set was short and provided jam sessions that seemed to be out of place, from what this reviewer remembers about Primus.

The second, nearly 90 minute set, used most of it to play their independent 1990 release Frizzle Fry in its entirety. The crowd, ranging from prog-rock fans of Rush, to wannabe hippies, to the hard rock crowd bounced (and in the orchestra pit, moshed) to tracks “Too Many Puppies” and “Mr. Knowitall”. The strongest of the jam sessions came during the Frizzle Fry set as well.

Bassist/Lead Singer Les Claypool must have injected a little jam band work from his ill-fated Frog Brigade group and gave Primus a new spectrum as a band. It didn’t seem like Primus was interested in playing the hits, which may have been a turn off to the estimated 4,500 people in attendance, a strong showing for the band given their four year layoff.

Even though jam sessions did rule out that night, the band still provided enough funky and hard rocking sounds to keep the fans that only came to hear the hits interested enough. One can only hope that Primus plays the “My Name is Mud” and “Mr. Krinkle” Pork Soda album in its entirely on their next tour.

Art can be contacted at arthatesyou@detroitbuzz.com