It has roughly 16 years since Failure had done a proper tour and seemed like the end of another 90s cult status band falling to the wayside. But fast forward to 2014, if they knew that reuniting would result in a sold out El Rey Theatre show and opening for both of Maynard James Keenan’s Cinquanta shows at the Greek Theatre, they timed it perfectly for a reunion.
Tonight’s show was ironically frontman/guitarist/bassist Ken Andrews’ birthday with special fog and new songs for the fans who made it out. Tonight was part of their first North American tour in 16 years and the set spanned their catalog throughout their history.
The set opened with ‘Another Space Song’, which got the crowd on a roll. The trio of Andrews, multi-instrumentalist Greg Edwards and drummer Kellii Scott were on point from go and did not miss a beat. If you didn’t know they took the past 16 years off, there was nothing that hinted that at all.
Other tunes like ‘Frogs’, ‘Saturday Saviour’ and ‘Wet Gravity’ gave the crowd an earful in the early portion. The second segue went into ‘Dirty Blue Balloons’, ‘Undone’, and ‘Pillowhead’, while the third segue was “The Nurse Who Loved Me” before they broke into an intermission.
The second half consisted of their heavier side of their discography, such as ‘Blank’ and ‘Solaris’, and even ‘Heliotrophic’. A new song called ‘The Focus’ was included in their encore, which they have been playing while on tour.
Andrews and Edwards traded off instruments throughout the set and looked flawless how they interacted with each other. While they are not the most visually stimulating band on stage, their music strikes a chord with the crowd and they interacted with screams of various song titles throughout the show. And of course, ‘Bernie’ and ‘Solaris’ were the commonly requested ones that did come up in their set list.
Failure proved that they are here to stay and possibly are bigger now than the first time around. Now with rumblings of a new album coming out sometime in 2015, the buzz will continue to grow and this will not be the last time we will be hearing from these guys.
[slideshow_deploy id=’7477′]
Failure Set List:
First Set:
Segue 2
Second Set:
Encore:
WORDS BY REI NISHIMOTO
PHOTOS BY KALEY NELSON PHOTOGRAPHY