Two new outdoor concerts are coming to Boise this summer. One will be a total Rush.
When it rains, it pours, at Outlaw Field in Boise — but in a good way.
Wait, that’s still a bad idiom for an outdoor venue.
Bottom line: The Idaho Botanical Garden’s summer concert space has been adding to its schedule like crazy lately — including two new shows that will fire up alternative-rock fans.
Funk-fueled oddballs Primus will perform Tuesday, July 21, with special guests Wolfmother and Battles. Tickets to the 6 p.m. show went on sale last Friday for $50.50 at Ticketmaster.
Five days after Primus, on July 26, critically acclaimed quintet The National will headline an 8 p.m. gig. (Yes, that does seem like sort of a late Sunday start time at that venue.) Lucy Dacus will open. Tickets went on sale last Friday at Ticketmaster.
The Primus show is interesting for a few reasons — and not just because frontman Les Claypool is a proudly weird dude. The Bay Area band will be on its “A Tribute to the Kings” tour. It pays homage to legendary prog-rock trio Rush, whose drummer, Neil Peart, died last month at age 67. Primus will play Rush’s entire 1977 album, “A Farewell to Kings,” as well as its own material.
In a media statement, Claypool said the members of Primus became friends with Rush while touring together in the early 1990s. “We were pretty delighted,” he said, “partially because of the musical geek-out factor, but mostly because the three guys whom we had admired so much from afar turned out to be truly great, down-to-earth humans, and like us, a tad eccentric.
“The ‘Tribute to Kings’ tour will be just as it is implied — a respectful and loving tribute to three spectacular musicians, songwriters, legends and friends.”
The addition of Australian hard-rock band Wolfmother and experimental duo Battles (featuring ex-Helmet drummer John Stanier) make this tour’s potential even more intriguing.
The National doesn’t have a special name for its 2020 trek. The concept seems unnecessary. Formed in 1999 in the Cincinnati area, the group has sold more than 1.7 million albums globally.
Known for an artistic, sometimes somber approach, The National has been followed by praise throughout its career. When British music magazine NME unveiled a list of the 500 greatest albums of all time in 2013, The National was chosen four times.
More recently, The National’s 2017 album, “Sleep Well Beast,” won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album.
Online: idahobotanicalgarden.org.
This story was originally published February 19, 2020 at 10:14 AM.