Faith No More's North American tour in support of Sol Invictus was five years ago.
FNM began their Sol Invictus tour in Japan and Australia, they returned to the USA for the first time since October 1997 in April 2015. After this they toured in Europe and the UK before returning to the USA and Canada for a second leg. The thirteenth date was on Sunday September 6th at Bumbershoot Festival, Seattle.
"'Sup. We're going back to the classics," said Faith No More frontman Mike Patton before launching into "Midlife Crisis". "Like 50 years back." The joke was that Faith No More is old, but even though they were the lone legacy headliner at Bumbershoot this year, they didn't show any sign of being complacent - 3/4ths of the way through "Midlife Crisis", the band abruptly paused the song, frontman Mike Patton entered a bowing pose, and after a brief pause, they resumed the song, now in a disco arrangement. Between that and Patton and Roddy Bottum's asides ("We haven't been here in 40 years" - they played the Paramount in April – "so talk amongst yourselves and find me a hippie boyfriend."), Faith No More were in a chipper mood on Saturday night, but they were hardly a joke. An hour and a half's worth of FNM classics, songs from their reunion album Sol Invictus, and choice covers ("Easy" by the Commodores and "I Started a Joke" by the Bee Gees) took over Memorial Stadium as Patton and his bandmates continued their 2015 campaign. Faith No More were certainly an unexpected surprise at the Bumbershoot announcement earlier this year – the other two headliners are two of the biggest pop stars in the world – and AEG deserve kudos for booking a band that wasn't only in a stylistic lane of their own at Bumbershoot, but also a band that's had no real successor or acolyte since their original breakup.
After playing a mixture of other hits, covers and rarities including “Caffeine” and The Commodores’ “Easy”, the familiar opening to “Epic” started and everyone went crazy. Keyboardist, Roddy Bottum started much of the banter between songs at one point telling the crowd they “looked great” while Patton responded with “Meh….I don’t know……looks like a bunch of hippies to me! This is what happens when you don’t invite us back for 30 years! You turn into hippies!”.
I couldn’t find any proof in my brief google search as to whether it had actually been 30 years, but I will take Patton’s word for it…and really people……that is far too long. Patton and the gang closed out the night with a cover of the Bee Gees’ “I Started a Joke” and put an exclamation point on Bumbershoot 2015 for us.
To hear so many different sounds in basically the same genre, as well as several generations grace the stage was an absolute treat and I will never forget any of the greats we got to see on Day 2.
Motherfucker
Be Aggressive
Caffeine
Everything's Ruined
Evidence
Epic
Black Friday
Midlife Crisis
Last Cup of Sorrow
The Gentle Art of Making Enemies
Easy (Commodores)
Spirit
Matador
Ashes to Ashes
Superhero
I Started a Joke (Bee Gees)
We Care a Lot
Just a Man