Primus
Channel 24, Sacramento
August 8, 2025
Photos by Paul Piazza
Primus recently wrapped up their first tour with new drummer John Hoffman at Sacramento’s Channel 24 with a sold-out two-night run. The band played two consecutive nights and there were zero repeats, which means they played a repertoire totaling 32 songs, and didn’t play any of them twice, over the course of the Sacramento stand.
That’s a pretty amazing feat for a band with a new drummer who is on the learning curve.
But this guy isn’t any drummer. The new fellow, John Hoffman, was the winner of a an interstellar drum derby held by the band. There was a need to consult the galaxy after longtime percussive wizard Tim Alexander decided to leave the band. The drum derby featured over 6,100 submissions from drummers all over the planet. The band kept fans engaged in the derby with a series of YouTube videos that became a worldwide sensation unto themselves. After many fine auditions, and a very well done video encapsulation, Hoffman, a native of Shreveport, Louisiana, was the drummer who was the best fit.
Naturally, Hoffman has big shoes to fill, because he is replacing Alexander, who was with the band for more than two decades in two different stints and played on their best run of original works. Primus, which started as a band with bass, guitar and a drum machine in the mid 80s, has since had a storied succession of drummers. Besides the revered Alexander, they have had Jay Lane, who is now a star in the jam world and one of the drummers in Dead and Company.
There was also Bryan “Brain” Mantia, a powerful and dynamic player who was at the helm for the 1997’s exceptional Brown record and the subsequent banger Antipop in 1999. Mantia is the drummer in the infamous Bay Area funk brigade Limbomaniacs. He was also in Praxis with Bill Laswell and Buckethead, briefly in Guns n’ Roses, and held the throne in Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains.
So the expectations were high enough for the band to entitle this subsequent first tour with Hoffman Onward and Upward. It was quite the fitting moniker for this forward looking group, who have navigated the musical seas with quirky batches of original songs with a unique style propelled around Claypool’s bass and touching on styles ranging from progressive to funk to metal to psychedelic. Lalonde, who began as a teenager in the Bay Area death metal outfit Possessed, has established himself as a master of technical prowess and melodic feel. Naturally, all along the way, the band encouraged their fans to chant the mantra “Primus Sucks!” It caught on early and has continued to this day.
At both Sacramento shows, Primus not only fulfilled expectations, but exceeded them with this new iteration. The band went deep and expansive into their archives with simmering renditions of some of their all-time favorites, plus a few unexpected deep cut treats and niblets.
Near the end of the first show, the band brought out the legendary Bay Area guitarist Bryan Kehoe, who played with Claypool in the Duo de Twang, one of many side projects Claypool in which Claypool has been involved. Claypool’s other groups include Colonel Claypool’s The Flying Frog Brigade, Sausage, Oysterhead, and The Claypool Lennon Delirium. Kehoe joined Primus for a rendition of Jerry Reed’s “Amos Otis” that was a pure rockin’ hoot! The rest of the night had featured four songs from the Brown album as well as three from the band’s landmark release Frizzle Fry. The Frizzle Fry cuts included “As the Toys Go Winding Down,” with its critical look at materialism and the compromising of California waterways and some pretty remarkable triple finger-picking by Claypool.
Another topical tune featured that first night, was the new track “Little Lord Fentanyl,” which is Hoffman’s first recording with Primus. The recorded version of this song also features vocals by Maynard James Keenan of Tool.
Night two featured four songs from 2011’s Green Naugahyde including a notable “Lee Van Cleef” that celebrates the genius of the great actor as well as the funky, but brief, return of Jay Lane on that record. The second set launched with a blistering version of “Spegetti Western” and later Hoffman was given a nice slice of time for an intro to “Eleven,” a complex piece of drumming mastery composed by Alexander. Near the end of the set, the band provided a double wallop with back to back renditions of generously percolating “Hamburger Train,” and then Claypool’s ridiculously funky slapping on “Tommy the Cat” ended the second set. Throughout both nights, Lalonde was absolutely fire including an extended bit on the ever-evolving guitar solo in “Harold Of the Rocks.”
Before the final encore, the band came out for a champagne toast to celebrate the end of Hoffman’s first tour run.
Naturally, there was one more thing to do after the crowd, many who had attended both nights, cheered in earnest. Claypool started a “Hoffman Sucks” chant that everyone picked up on quickly, and soon the entire venue was chanting this with enthusiasm and heartfelt adoration.
Then, they came out for a final encore of the psychedelic adventure known as “Southbound Pachyderm.” It was a fitting finish for this band which has taken many different directions over the course of their existence and continues to follow the proverbial beat of their own drummer. It will be interesting to see what this retrofitted trio does as they continue down the road.
