A Perfect Circle – Mohegan Sun Arena – Uncasville, CT – November 5, 2017
Much like Maynard James Keenan’s principle music project, Tool, A Perfect Circle aren’t exactly known for being the most active band in the studio or from a touring perspective.
Although the band has been around almost twenty years now in various incarnations, they’ve only released two full length studio recordings of all original music, 2000’s Mer de Noms and the 2003 follow up, Thirteenth Step.
In 2014 the band did put out Emotive, however, the album was comprised primarily of politically charged covers with only a few original tracks making it onto the LP.
That hasn’t stopped A Perfect Circle’s mass of devotees from continuing to support the band especially when Kennan, Billy Howerdel, James Iha, Matt McJunkins and Jeff Friedl engage in the rare lengthy tour cycle such as the one they’ve undertaken throughout the course of 2017.
A Perfect Circle doesn’t continue to fill arenas based solely on the star power of Kennan alone. The fact is they are one of the most technically proficient and musically talented rock bands touring the planet today. Their music is expansive, intricate, thought provoking and taylor made for arenas.
The swaying emotion in the band’s music alone allows A Perfect Circle to deliver immersive and transfixing live experiences that come across more like musical vacations to distant galaxies backed by a fantastical soundtrack than the do so concerts.
Their live shows seamlessly weave attendees in and out of both space and time, taking those in attendance on emotive journeys that are as visually stimulating as they are musically hypnotizing.
All of this was delivered to great effect this past Sunday in Uncasville, Connecticut as A Perfect Circle blissfully catapulted the Mohegan Sun Arena audience into their whimsical musical universe.
The band delivered close to a two hour set of refulgent live music that included nineteen songs, featuring equal doses of both Mer de Noms and Thirteenth Step, alongside four tracks off of Emotive as well as three new songs that may or may not appear on the band’s rumored 2018 release.
Upon the arena lights dimming a giant mesh curtain appeared projecting colossal silhouettes of the band members as they took to the stage to begin the show with “The Package,” the opening track off of Thirteenth Step.
The enormous shadows of the band contorted and swayed creating a striking visual that made it seem as though the band and the entire audience had been cast and were staring in a David Fincher movie that was being filmed before their very eyes.
As the song reached its peaked the gargantuan curtain dropped revealing the band. As usual Kennan remained in the rear of stage shadows, perched atop a cylindrical platform while both Friedel and Iha occupied raised platforms of their own, to the right and the left of the front man respectively.
Like most A Perfect Circle live performances these days any stage antics were left to the more enthusiastic McJunkins and Howerdel.
The guitarist and bassist darted from stage end to stage end throughout the entirety of the performance while also striking more than their fare share of rock star poses as they and the entire band remained encapsulated in a haze of fog and waves of resplendent lighting effects.
Similar to A Perfect Circle’s music, the show itself was deliberately astrictive at times. This condition allowed the band to generate peaks and valleys awash with divergent emotions that helped to enchant and captivate the Mohegan Sun audience from the first note strummed to the last note played.
Perhaps the best news to come out of the band’s performance in Connecticut came from Kennan via one of his trademark quips, confirming that A Perfect Circle would indeed be putting out their first full length record in thirteen years sometime in 2018.
Towards the end of the show the front man wisecracked, “The internet is a funny beast. We should all be talking to each other more. Oh in 2018 A new A Perfect Circle record is coming out. Now back to the but sex.”
For fans of A Perfect Circle hopefully Kennan is telling the truth in terms of a not so distant release date for the band’s new music. After all, Tool’s new record has been in the works for north of decade now, so try to keep that in mind and plan accordingly.
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All Photography & Writing: Robert Forte
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