Free at Noon Flashback: The Claypool Lennon Delirium provides escape and innovation to World Cafe Live audience

The Claypool Lennon Delirium | photo by Gabriela Barbieri for WXPN\

For today’s Free at Noon concert, the downstairs of World Cafe Live was packed with audience members eagerly awaiting The Claypool Lennon Delirium. The band is a project of music greats Les Claypool and Sean Lennon. Claypool is best known for his role as founder, bassist, and vocalist of Primus, while Lennon is the son of Beatles legend John Lennon and a multi-instrumentalist in his own right. Lennon has bounced around the world of underground and indie rock and produced a few solo albums, including Into the Sun (1998) and Friendly Fire (2006). According to Rolling Stone, Delirium was born from Claypool and Lennon’s mutual desire to “sit in a room and make space sounds again.”

“They said we could do this little radio thing,” Claypool commented at the top of their set today, “I thought we’d be up in a studio… what the hell is this?” Despite the shock of a sold-out show rather than a quiet studio, The Claypool Lennon Delirium delivered their signature psychedelic-meets-progressive rock sound with charm and humor. Today’s concert featured the group’s latest album, South of Reality, which was released in February 2019. Claypool seemed particularly excited to share the album and remarked, “We’re going to spew some more newness upon you.” Songs like “Blood and Rockets,” “Easily Charmed by Fools,” and “Cricket Chronicles Revisited: Part I, Ask Your Doctor – Part 2, Psyde Effects” delighted the crowd with their wit and ambitious narrative concepts.

It’s always refreshing to see a band having fun on stage — something that Claypool and Lennon do in abundance. From swirling purple lights to unique hats for each band member, The Claypool Lennon Delirium performance was a miniature space odyssey of elaborate guitar solos, interstellar synths, and skillful bass. They revel in abstract concepts and leaned into the trippy. Their afternoon set was its own kind of spaceship that allowed audience members to escape from their weekday reality and rocket somewhere out of this world.

The Claypool Lennon Delirium are playing tonight, April 12, at the Fillmore at 9 p.m.; details on the show can be found at the XPN Concert Calendar.