Clutch/Rival Sons/Fu Manchu Live 9/15/24
Live at Hampton Beach Casino in Hampton, New Hampshire, USA *September 15th 2024*
I have only seen Fu Manchu live once and it was a long time ago. Five years ago, I was planning on seeing them play in Boston and the tour got postponed until the year after, and then ultimately canceled because of the pandemic. I have been a fan of their music since the late nineties and have always enjoyed their albums. So when I heard about this tour, I knew that I had to jump on board and buy tickets. Fu Manchu are legendary in the desert/stoner rock genre and have influenced countless bands. My preference is to see them in a small club, as was the case the first time that I saw them. However, the opportunity was here to see them open for Clutch and I didn’t want to miss it. After the release of their latest album, The Return Of Tomorrow (review here), I was very excited to see them live again. Fu Manchu delivered one of their best albums in years, in my opinion.
The show started at 7:00 sharp. Fu Manchu came out with a guitar explosion of noise with drums and crashing cymbals. The band then broke into “Eatin’ Dust” from the 1998 record Godzilla’s/Eatin’Dust. It was awesome! I wasn’t expecting them to play that song, let alone the first one of their set. The band proceeded to play “Evil Eye” from 1997’s The Action Is Go album. Again, excellent song selection! The third song they played, “Hands Of The Zodiac” was the first single from The Return Of Tomorrow record. It faired very well alongside the others. “Hell On Wheels” from 1999’s King Of The Road album was next and really amped up the crowd. A mosh pit broke out next to us, which kind of surprised me based on the type of crowd that was there. A lot of people seemed to appreciate Fu Manchu which was well deserving based on the band’s epic history and ass kickery. “Loch Ness Wrecking Machine” from the new one was next and also played well in the set. “King Of The Road” gained a big response from the crowd with loud cheers and yells. Fu Manchu played very tight, despite the disappointing short set. The closer for the Fu was the classic “Saturn III.” The band couldn’t go wrong ending the set with this monster of a song.
The next band up was Rival Sons. They are a throwback 70’s sounding rock band. The singer came out wearing a suit and the guitarist was wearing a top hat, sunglasses, and tight pants. Very rock n’ roll for sure. Unfortunately, I was not too familiar with their material or many of their songs. They were the co-headliners with Clutch and a good amount of people there really liked them. I must say, they are very talented musicians and the vocalist has a very powerful voice. His singing was killer. It almost reminds me of a Robert Plant type or someone of that caliber. I was familiar with the last two songs of their set, “Electric Man” and “Secret” from The Great Western Valkyrie album. It was decent, but not exactly my thing.
We probably waited about thirty minutes before Clutch came out on stage. They performed a full set of their 2004 album Blast Tyrant, in its entirety. That’s probably my favorite record from Clutch, so it was awesome hearing all of the songs live. The band put on a stellar show as usual and sounded great. The crowd was all packed in tight and it was hard to see at times. We were positioned about five rows away from the stage towards the right side. We pretty much stayed in that spot from the beginning. One obnoxious drunk guy was slamming into people and trying to make his way to the front, which was very annoying and distracting. Luckily, the security kicked him out for his behavior. I’m not really into bigger shows like this anymore. Big crowds of people all bunched into one section is not comfortable at all. I will always prefer a small club or dive bar setting over this. The place does have a good sound system but there’s just too many bodies all crammed together. On a positive note, we met a nice couple from upstate New York. The guy had a Fu Manchu shirt on and commented on our Dozer T-shirts. They were cool and we liked a lot of similar bands and music. Jen and I left after Clutch played the last song from Blast Tyrant. They began playing “Space Grass” as we made our way out the door.
