Faith No More

I considered myself to be pretty savvy in the 8th grade. After all, I knew what Anthony Kiedis was really talking about when he cryptically went “under the bridge” and “drew some blood.” Yet, now I’ll finally admit that I only had the vaguest idea of what Mike Patton actually meant by repeatedly screaming “I swallow!” on Angel Dust‘s (1992) S&M epic “Be Aggressive.” But whatever it was, it sounded obscene, so my friends and I repeatedly shouted this couplet to each other in daily conversation, alongside frequent rapping of the “lady cop” verse of Kiedis’s “Sir Psycho Sexy” (far less subtle in its message).

Keep in mind that Angel Dust is one of my desert island records. So, at least to me, this past Monday night’s Faith No More reunion gig was just as much a concert as the fulfillment of a junior high school dream: to be one amongst a 10,000-plus throng all shouting “I swallow!!!” in celebratory unison. Satisfaction arrived almost prematurely: “Be Aggressive” was the third song in the roughly ninety-minute set.

It seems odd to say this about a band capable of selling out two nights at a “state park” (more like repurposed landfill) over the 4th of July weekend, but Faith No More never really got their due. They’re still best known for that surreal video with the dying goldfish and have been unfairly saddled with the onus of having invented “rap-metal,” thus paving the way for the likes of KoRn (backwards “R” maybe?), even though, lyric writing aside, Mike Patton had next to nothing to do with the recorded music on 1989’s The Real Thing. Faith No More’s three successive, Patton-helmed albums are considerably proggy entities bearing no resemblance to Limp Bizkit whatsoever. But save a few airings of “Midlife Crisis,” MTV (which still wielded considerable power in 1992) sealed their fate as a U.S. cult band by almost ignoring career masterwork Angel Dust entirely. The latter’s frequent use of spooky keyboards and slap bass couldn’t have seemed less cool at the height of the grunge era, though it did propel the band to newfound levels of stardom overseas.

As the kids who just helped sell out Madison Square Garden to see the Arcade Fire will tell you, spooky keyboards and heavy doses of theatricality are no longer liabilities in 2010, and any band attempting to rock the disco hi-hat would kill to have a rhythm section as deeply funky as that of Billy Gould and Mike “Puffy” Bordin. And while it’s doubtful that the zeitgeist actually had anything to do with the timing of this second coming, Faith No More’s live show bears the relief that their songs have aged extremely well, especially those from 1995’s unjustly overlooked King for a Day, Fool for a Lifetime.

Mike Patton has spent the past twelve years building up his Ipecac label, seemingly unconcerned with Faith No More’s legacy. But any fears that his enthusiasm would be feigned were immediately belied by his choice of stage outfit: a blood red suit and equally red dress shirt to complement the prom night attire (boutonnières too!) of his cohorts. After a purposely unfunny introduction from purposely unfunny comedian Neil Hamburger, Patton gamely raised a melodica to his lips, signaling that the opener would be Angel Dust‘s downbeat closer, their cover of John Barry’s theme from “Midnight Cowboy.” It was a welcome change of pace from their cheesy cover of Peaches and Herb’s “Reunited,” which has reportedly opened every one of these reunion gigs. This segued into the creepy, eight-minute title track from The Real Thing, the one song from that somewhat dated album that bears the closest resemblance to FNM’s mid-‘90s material. And it was full on for the remainder of the evening; Patton enthusiastically flung himself about the stage while rhyming “malnutrition” with “submission” on “Be Aggressive” before careening into the towering bass groove of Dust kick-off track “Land of Sunshine.” This energy persisted.

Patton was clearly enjoying himself, once again relishing his frontman duties as a welcome breather from his recent role as a label head/white noise terrorist. The man’s voice is as weirdly flexible as it was fifteen years ago, now often supplemented by a megaphone or the additional electronic manipulation he often uses at his ear-raping solo gigs. He frequently chatted up the audience, accurately referring to the 97-degree weather as “bullshit” and acknowledging the recent weekend breakdown of the “L” Train (a.k.a. the ONLY subway in existence that gives the entirety of Manhattan access to the hipster-heavy part of Brooklyn where the show was taking place, thus increasing my commute by nearly two hours). The setlist was drawn relatively evenly from the band’s final three albums, with The Real Thing getting less focus than usual in favor of some added pre-Patton oldies (“Crab Song,” “Chinese Arithmetic”) in which he gamely subbed for original vocalist Chuck Mosely. And that other Faith No More live staple—purposely goofy (and yet somehow reverent) blue-eyed soul covers—was on full display with Patton crooning on the Commodore’s “Easy” (“C’mon, hipsters, you know you love it!”), Michael Jackson’s “Ben,” and even the Bee Gees’ “I Started a Joke”—oddly, the band’s last officially released single.

The crowd, predominantly bearded dudes in their mid-30s wearing Tool and Melvins t-shirts, was clearly an educated bunch. They knew enough to sing the second chorus of “Mid-Life Crisis” completely without band assistance, enabling keyboard player Roddy Bottum to cleverly play the horn intro to Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke” before slamming into the remainder of the song. The warmest reception was saved for underrated King For a Day cuts “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies” and “Digging the Grave,” and when “Epic” was eventually played, the crowd clearly (surprisingly?) would have preferred to hear something else, despite a dutifully enthusiastic performance on Patton’s part. Better received was a four-song encore containing the aforementioned Bee Gees cover and their earliest hit, “We Care A Lot,” a slap-funk anthem once featured on the Grosse Point Blank soundtrack, predating “Epic” by four years.

Aside from stiflingly hot temperatures and an archaic queue system that made getting into the park a nightmare, there wasn’t a heck of a lot to dislike. The band sounded great, aided by a bass-heavy mix that played up the rhythm section while still giving ample space to Bottum’s keyboards, and the generous setlist portrayed a group that’s well aware of the best bits of their back catalog. Now how about some Mr. Bungle gigs?