Photos: Alessio Neri

BERKELEY — The An Evening with Primus and Clutch tour came to a magnificent conclusion last night at the Greek Theater in Berkeley.

Funky Bay Area progressive metal band Primus concluded a short U.S. tour at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley on Friday. Singer-bassist Les Claypool was in a jovial mood, happy to be playing outdoors and breaking the closed-space vibe of all the tour’s previous gigs.

Primus is about to release its newest studio album, The Desaturated Seven, at the end of next month, but only one of the new tracks, “The Seven,” was played at the Greek. Older fan favorites played included “Mr. Krinkle,” “My Name Is Mud,” “Jenny Was A Race Car Driver” and “Those Damned Blue-Collar Tweekers.”

It is no coincidence that Clutch was chosen to open each night on this tour. The Maryland veterans played exceptionally for 75 minutes. Their music featured heavy riffs alongside lead singer Neil Fallon’s powerful and deep voice. They quickly warmed up the crowd with “Crucial Velocity,” off Earth Rocker. In fact most of the band’s setlist consisted of tracks from that album. At one point, Fallon said this was “the best tour we’ve ever been on.” He didn’t explain why, but  his band’s songs were perfectly executed.

Follow photo editor Alessio Neri at Instagram.com/windowofcolor and Windowofcolor.com.