When Maynard James Keenan, legendary frontman for the rock band TOOL, announced last year that he would celebrate his 60th birthday by launching a one-of-a-kind triple header tour featuring his projects A Perfect Circle and Puscifer, along with his longtime friends in Primus, it felt like a once in a lifetime lineup decades in the making.
So to see the tour back out on the road again for Version 2.0 – coming to Van Andel Arena, May 28 – feels like a gift that keeps on giving for diehard fans and newcomers alike.
Sessanta, which is simply Spanish for 60, is anything but simple. The tour features all three bands sharing the unique double-decker stage, and swapping musicians throughout the evening. Members of each band will pop up in the other’s mini sets, all morphing together as the night goes on, leading to rare moments where Keenan might sing with Primus, or Les Claypool may play bass with Puscifer, or A Perfect Circle’s Billy Howerdel might play guitar with either.
“We got off that (first) tour and took a little stock of it, and everyone agreed that was about the most fun we’ve ever had on tour,” Howerdel said about why they decided to do Sessanta V2.0. “So why are we not doing this again? I think it kind of translates out, because you can see that it’s just unique. It’s not the same format. Honestly, it was pretty daunting when we were first discussing it. We had done something similar for his 50th birthday, whatever that was, 11 years ago. But, taking it on tour and the logistics of it, it was a lot of work to get it set up and going. And then once it was in autopilot mode, once it was a smooth running machine, it was really fun.”
Howerdel – who famously started out in his career as a guitar tech for bands like TOOL and Nine Inch Nails before co-founding A Perfect Circle with Keenan in 1999, noted the numerous technical and logistical challenges of a show like Sessanta.
“It was challenging, especially for the crew that puts it together,” he said. “I would say especially for the sound crew, because if any one listening has any sense of what this means, when I asked, three shows in, I said, ‘Hey, can I get two extra channels for this thing out of my guitar rig?’ And they said, ‘Well, that’s the last channel available on our entire rig. Like, you’re at 256 inputs of audio.’ And I was like, ‘OK, yeah, I can see you guys are doing a lot of heavy math lifting, trying to pull this off.’ But now we should be good. Although, of course, we’re tinkering. I’m tinkering. I’m changing patches, and kind of tightening some screws down on sounds, and modernizing some stuff.”
The first sold-out run of Sessanta earned rave reviews all across the country, with critics commenting on its innovative concept, captivating light show, surprise guests, jokes, and other antics.
“You just wind up settling in and finding your rhythm with the show, with the set,” Howerdel said. “And I won’t give away how that works. But for us it’s just a different schedule than you usually have on tour. It’s a very different feeling thing. Typically it’s your own show, and it’s concentrated there... We’ve all done festivals, but you’re not really doing this. This is like your one band operating, but its three bands, going past. So it’s cool. It’s more casual, it’s a less formal kind of affair.”
Howerdel added that with Puscifer locked in the very complex, orchestrated way that they are, and Primus playing like “the most sophisticated jam band in the world,” it can feel intimidating to know what he might add to their songs, but that it’s best not to overthink it and have fun with the experience.
Having had the whole world put on pause during the COVID-19 pandemic, Howerdel said he’s a broken record with how many times he’s expressed how those years now feel like a time warp as he’s returned to touring.
“It’s funny how time compressed, and expanded during 2020, 2021, 2022,” he said. “It’s just like, I can’t believe that much time passed. And then it feels like it just happened… I think that the hardest part for me, as far as being a musician, doing what we do, is when the pandemic happened, and then it got into the next year, and there were those false starts, and I was like, ‘OK, we’re coming back, we’re doing it. And then it was like, OK, we’re having another outbreak, and now we’ve got to postpone this tour.”
Howerdel had just recorded his first solo album under his own name, 2022’s What Normal Was, and the pandemic massively delayed both the record’s release and its supporting tour. Outside of A Perfect Circle Howerdel had previously performed with his solo project Ashes Divide, around its lone album Keep Telling Myself It’s Alright in 2008, before returning to APC for tours throughout the 2010s.
“Just like everyone else in every other industry, probably, but especially in touring, I can say that the train never stops rolling,” he said. “You just don’t stop. And the train stopped. So that was very strange to have, a mission that you’re usually on with a lot of people involved. And even if you were sick or something happened, you just generally don’t cancel or modify the tour. So that was crazy. And then jumping back into it took a little time to get to feel back to normal. And now we have a new normal, just readjusting to what that is. Now it feels like we’re kind of back to, well, we’re in our new normal. Like last year, that was the first big tour I’d been on since the pandemic. And it felt celebratory in itself.”
Primus, A Perfect Circle, and Puscifer celebrated the success of the first Sessanta with the release of the three-song joint release E.P.P.P. last year, featuring new songs from each band, all co-written with Keenan.
This year also marks the 25th anniversary of A Perfect Circle’s platinum-selling debut album, 2000’s Mer De Noms, which Howerdel said he’d love to celebrate as well.
“This tour is coming right at the anniversary of it, and I’d like to do something to commemorate it in a live sense, but we’ll see,” he said. “We’ve been talking about it. We don’t have anything locked down as of now, but we will see. I have nothing to officially announce, but I should say stay tuned.”
Sessanta V 2.0: featuring Primus, A Perfect Circle, Puscifer
Van Andel Arena, 130 West Fulton, Grand Rapids
May 28, 7:30 p.m., $39.50+
Sessantalive.com, vanandelarena.com
