Primus

Name: Primus
Start: 2025-07-19T19:30:00-04:00
Location: 105 Pearl Street Essex Junction VT 05452

Schedule

Sat, 19 Jul, 2025 at 07:30 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

105 Pearl Street Essex Junction VT 05452 | Essex, VT

Primus with Ty Segall, Saturday, July 19 at the Midway Lawn at Champlain Valley Expo
$59.50 Advance, $63.50 Day of Show | $140 VIP add-on
Children 12 and under are FREE (+ do not need a ticket)! No food or drinks allowed. Blankets and chairs are permitted. All events are rain or shine. All dates, acts, and ticket prices subject to change without notice.
$140 LUCKY BASTARD VIP EXPERIENCE ADD-ON:

- Early entry to the venue
- Invitation to an exclusive pre-show Q&A session with Primus
- One (1) screen printed LTD VIP tour poster signed by Primus
- Crowd Free Merchandise shopping
- On-site Event Host
- Ticket to the show must be purchased separately

Primus
Following their electrifying run on the Sessanta tour alongside A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, Primus will return this summer with the Onward & Upward Tour—an expansive, coast-to-coast trek that marks an exciting new chapter for the band. The tour not only brings the trio’s signature blend of musical innovation back to stages nationwide, but also introduces fans to drummer John Hoffman, whose recent addition to the lineup brings a renewed sense of energy, experimentation, and groove to the legendary outfit.
The Onward & Upward tour borrows its name from the ever-mutating DNA of Primus itself—a band that’s never been content to sit still or play it straight. That spirit of constant evolution is now hurtling forward with the addition of drummer John Hoffman, whose arrival marks a bold new chapter for the trio. Selected from more than 6,200 global applicants during the band’s wide-open audition process, Hoffman’s deep pocket, wild musical mind, and immediate chemistry with Les Claypool and Larry LaLonde made him the clear choice.
Les Claypool shared the following statement about the tour and the band’s newest member:
“Hitting the road this summer with Hoffer at the helm! This fiery, cheerful, octopus-like drummer from Shreveport, Louisiana has breathed a very potent breath of freshness into this band we all call PRIMUS.
While splitting the drum duties of his first gig with the mighty Danny Carey down in the Dominican Republic, John "Hoffer" Hoffman has launched himself into the PRIMUS world with all guns-a-blazin'. Fresh from their next jaunt around the states with Sessanta Part 2 this Spring, Hoffer, Ler, and The Ol' Colonel will be playing some full length PRIMUS sets at choice venues across the US, dipping into material (mainly at the request of Hoffer) that have not been performed in a many years.
Come see why this amazing fellow was able to rise above over 6100 applicants to win the Interstellar Drum Derby and become the latest, and possibly the greatest, drummer to sit on the PRIMUS drum throne.
ONWARD AND UPWARD!!”
The search for a new drummer was recently chronicled in the band’s newly launched YouTube series, Interstellar Drum Derby, which gives fans an inside look at the journey that led to Hoffman’s selection. With his first full tour on the horizon, Onward & Upward promises to deliver the next wave of Primus’ creative vision.

Ty Segall

Ty Segall rides back in with his 16th album, Possession, to be released May 30th via Drag City, and with today’s announcement, releases the lead single,“Fantastic Tomb.” Following 2024’s Three Bells, Possession sees Ty on the hunt for new horizons, hitting the trail beneath the big skies of our frontier empire to take us on a high-octane narrative journey. A literary set of lyrics co-written by his longtime collaborator, filmmaker Matt Yoka, paint an abiding view of quintessentially American stories. All the while, there are invigorated new sounds around every bend – glittering rhythm arrangements feature more of Ty’s own piano woodshedding than ever, joined in battle by sweeping movements of strings and horns. Rife with singing guitar leads and banks of Ty’s vocal harmonies, Possession features some of Ty’s most inspired songs to date.
Tapping Yoka to write with him was one of the keys to this new music. As a non-musician, Yoka’s language sense is different from the one Ty’s amassed as a player of music. With the trust they’ve developed over the years — brainstorming the visual worlds of Goodbye Bread, Manipulator, Emotional Mugger, and music of Yoka’s Whirlybird documentary — they throw the conceptual ball back and forth to translate a general feeling or a vibe into wicked lyric imagery, each acting as writer and editor in the process. Be it de Toqueville, duBois, George H. Nash, Howard Zinn, Bob Dylan or Smile-era Beach Boys, Ty’s sharpened narrative approach and storytelling takes a page from everyone’s history.
Today’s single, “Fantastic Tomb,” is an epic story-song. Desperate for something he can hold onto, our hero takes a job hitting the house of “a man worth more than a country could make,” only to find the treasure hunt to be just another ride to nowhere. The song is a modern American noir-cum-classic rock hoedown, scored with Ty’s burnt-filament lead guitar and ingeniously sealed with Mikal Cronin’s saxophone section.
Possession is Ty Segall’s own bizarre traversing of the American landscape, taking back alleys through complicated cityscapes and singing about the end of the rope while resisting defeat — suggesting an ecstatic new empire to build as he cruises the countryside.