[ATTENDED: July 28, 2026] Tomahawk
I’ve seen Mike Patton with two bands: Dead Cross and Mr. Bungle. I enjoy anything he does and am always happy to see what he comes up with (Although I didn;t like the Avett Brothers/Patton country sound all that much). St this point, there’s realistically only two other bands I’d like to see him front live, Fantômas (which I doubt will happen) and Faith No More (which could happen). I’d also like to see Mr. Bungle again, since the show I saw was their debut album only, but whatever. Tomahawk is a Patton-fronted project that I was into for a bit and then it just felt like there were too many Patton related bands to keep track of at the time (Lovage, Peeping Tom, Fantômas, Faith No More, Mr. Bungle) so I stopped following them. Which is a shame because their music is quite diverse (I mean, all Patton music is diverse, often within the same song, but…oh forget it).
So anyhow, Tomahawk put out an album in during the pandemic but hadn’t toured it. Then, a few months ago, they announced this tour with the Melvins: a huge waste of your time and money (hilarious).
Even though I wasn’t a huge fan, I knew I had to see them. In addition to Patton, the band featured Duane Denison (Jesus Lizard, Firewater) on guitar John Stanier (Helmet, Battles) on drums and Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle, tons of other things) on bass. A great lineup.
The lights came up and the stage was fairly sparse. Drums in the back (with Stanier’s outrageously tall cymbals), a table of some sort out front for Patton and amps on either side. Because of the table, I couldn’t see Trevor Dunn very much (he hung back) until he came up to sing backing vocals. But I had a great view of Denison and it was amazing watching him play. He’s not flashy at all, but he does al kinds of interesting things to generate interesting sounds.
In fact, the whole show was not flashy at all. There were no fancy lights or projections (just the band’s logo on a curtain in the back). In fact, half way through the set I realized that the setlist was taped to Patton’s table.
They opened with the first song on their first album. Rather appropriate, I think. The squeaking sound of some kind of effect opened the set as Patton whispered the lyrics to Flashback and the crowd went berserk. The song took off and the mosh pit started. Tomahawk is a hard band to mosh to, because their songs go at varying tempos and intensity. But people managed it.
Tomahawk never toured that 2021 album, so they finally had a chance to play it live. I suppose old school fans wanted to hear their earlier stuff (although, I mean this album is 5 years old, it’s not exactly new), but I really enjoyed this new stuff. And the played 9 of the ten songs from it.
SHHH! has lots of vocal parts and I really enjoyed at the end of the song when Patton whispers the title. It seemed like he was trying to get everyone to stop yelling things (which they did during the quiet parts), but I realized it was part of the song. Predators and Scavengers has a cool riff and simple chugging guitar parts. It was fun being in front of Duane Denison for this one. I loved turning my head from Patton to see what he was doing and he was inevitably calmly playing some cool thing or other.
I had listened to the setlist before the show since I didn’t really know the songs that well (if at all) and one of my favorites was Business Casual. It was really fun watching Mike and Trevor scream the lyrics and then whisper “bad cholesterol, business casual.” Dension made interesting quiet guitar sounds while Dunn’s bass rumbled along. I liked that Doomsday Fatigue had quiet moments–because Patton’s (and the whole band’s) range is tremendous and it’s fun to see them really show off what they can do. (more…)
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