Ween (McCarren Park Pool - Brooklyn NY - 2008-07-25)

The Pool
Summer in Brooklyn is not complete with attending a concert at the McCarren Park Pool in Williamsburg. Opened during The Great Depression at a cost of $1 million, the pool boasted a capacity of 6,800 simultaneous swimmers, making it one of the largest public pools in the world. Sadly, after falling into disrepair and amid community debate over its future, the pool was closed in 1983. Recently, however, after years of wrangling, the city announced plans to renovate the pool at a cost of $50 million, with construction to start in 2009. Luckily, the pool hasn’t remained entirely dormant these last few years. Various groups have been promoting events at the venue, including concerts, film, and theater productions.

Enter Ween
Those scurrilous brothers-from-other-mothers, Gene and Dean Ween (Aaron Freeman and Mickey Melchiondo), made the pool their final stop on their current tour promoting their latest opus, La Cucaracha. Backed by their current bandmates, Dave Dreiwitz (bass), Claude Coleman Jr. (drums), and Glenn McClelland (keyboards), the brothers Ween cranked out a three hour, 30+ song set spanning nearly all of their 11 studio albums.

This tour (and the time off recording La Cucaracha in a farmhouse in Pennsylvania) seems to have done Ween good as they were back to form after a few recent years of mediocre-yet-entertaining gigs. Highlights included lesser-played gems like “Marble Tulip Juicy Tree,” “The Stallion, Part V,” “Frank,” and “The Argus.” Other crowd pleasers like “Ocean Man,” “Booze Me Up And Get Me High,” and “Mutilated Lips” did not disappoint. Sadly, “Baby Bitch” – this writer’s all-time favorite by the band – was not on the setlist. Gener was enjoying himself, as usual, smiling and swaying around the stage. Deaner kept relatively mum during the show, choosing instead to let his Stratocaster inform the young audience why he is one of the most skilled guitarists playing today.

As the sun went down (and the drugs presumably kicked in), even those famously-disaffected Williamsburg hipsters in attendance began to loosen up. Glancing around the audience, the hippie/jamband types weren’t the only ones dancing. And by the time the band ended their encore with a double-barreled blast of “You Fucked Up” and “Dr. Rock,” a new generation of Ween fans, many born after the band’s formation, stumbled out into the hot summer night.