I love Mike Patton. There, I've said it. In almost every incarnation, this musical Renaissance Man has been there for me, providing an awesome soundtrack to my life.
Mr Bungle, Tomahawk, Fantômas, Lovage, Kaada/Patton, General Patton vs The X-Ecutioners (Peeping Tom not so much - sorry Mike), and of course the great, the seminal Faith No More which sadly disbanded over a decade ago.
Last Wednesday the impossible happened. The rumours were true - Faith No More reunited at Brixton Academy and I was lucky enough to be there.
When hubby and I arrived at Brixton to meet up with friends and family, six golden tickets were burning a hole in my pocket.
As well as the usual touts, civilians accosted us, hoping that one of our party had dropped out. One poor lad held up a sign saying "Desperate Faith No More Fan will do anything for ticket" - they'd been going on eBay for about £200 each ...
Anyway, at 9pm, the lights dimmed and one by one, amidst cheers, Roddy Bottum, Billy Gould, Jon Hudson and Mike "Puffy" Bordin appeared (the first three in beautiful pastel lounge suits with buttonholes) and a lilting keyboard refrain began.
Finally Mike Patton walked onto the stage in a fetching peach number and he started to sing. The excitement in the air was palpable.
The song? "Reunited" (by Peaches and Herb) a gorgeous, cheesy torch-song, typical of their tongue-in-cheek humour and so wonderfully apt for the first song for Faith No More to perform together after 11 years.
I actually felt tears in my eyes.
The rest of the set was fantastic - almost two hours of breathtaking music.
It was wonderful to hear "Epic" done with such passion, especially when my husband had convinced me that it would be performed sarcastically.
The stand-out track for me was "Just a Man" which was growled so lustily by Patton, it actually surpassed the album version (and others agree with me).
The only bum note was when they did "Easy", but only because we were surrounded by tone-deaf audience members caterwauling along.
I knew Mike Patton still had it in him, but it was astonishing to see how well the whole band gelled - the camaraderie and harmony was brilliant to see and hear.
As the show wrapped up, my family, friends and I looked at each other as we realised we had witnessed a very special moment - the Faith No More Reunion.
The full Brixton 2009 setlist below:
Reunited (Peaches & Herb cover)
The Real Thing
From Out of Nowhere
Land of Sunshine
Caffeine
Evidence
Chinese Arithmetic
Surprise! You're Dead
Easy
Last Cup of Sorrow
Midlife Crisis, including a few bars of Popcorn
Cuckoo For Caca
The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
RV
King For A Day
Malpractice
Jizzlobber
Be Aggressive
Epic
Mark Bowen
----------------
1st Encore:
Chariots of Fire
Stripsearch
Just A Man
----------------
2nd Encore:
I Started A Joke
Pristina
Of course, the excitement didn't end there though.
Last night, Faith No More headlined at Download - a metal festival at Donington Park.
They performed in front of 70,000 fans, and hubby and I watched in awe as Download kindly streamed the show online to fans worldwide.
They did a couple of songs that we didn't get at Brixton, such as "Ashes to Ashes" and "Take this Bottle".
They also did "We Care A Lot" - a pre-Patton, Chuck Mosley era number - and I think Patton showed what he thought of it as he performed sit-ups whilst singing.
The whole set was just as fantastic, but I couldn't help thinking how lucky we were though, to see Faith No More in the relative intimacy of Brixton Academy with its capacity of less than 4,000.
However, we're off to follow them faithfully to France - to Rock En Seine in Paris - where the capacity is 80,000 ...
Faith No More - reunited and it feels so good:
More of my Faith No More Photos here.
More of my Faith No More Videos here.
All Brixton photos copyright me, except for the one at the top which came from Roddy Bottum's Twitter.
All Download screencaps copyright Download Festival
Normal food-blogging service will resume shortly ...
Comments
I agree that the Brixton show was special. You were there the first time they dropped Reunited before everyone had a chance to google the song. You were there for Just A Man, which seems to be unique to that night. Thanks for sharing.
I checked out your blog too - thanks for linking to my vid ;)
meemalee xxx
BTW-I just got your twitter note...sorry I didn't see it before. Your blog is great!