Sessanta’s three-headed band monster invades GR for ingenious homecoming romp

The tour that puts Michigander Maynard James Keenan’s A Perfect Circle and Puscifer on stage with Primus rocked Van Andel Arena on Wednesday, with a guest stint by Billy Strings. The review and photos.

 

SCROLL DOWN FOR PHOTO GALLERY, SET LIST

Maynard James Keenan’s latest homecoming was a tough one: His first show in his home state of Michigan without his father, Mike Keenan, in attendance.

The elder Keenan, who lived in Scottville, passed away in February, prompting a rare moment of vulnerability for one of Grand Rapids’ most famous rock star exports.

“This has been a hard show to get through,” Keenan admitted at the conclusion of the Sessanta tour’s stop at Van Andel Arena Wednesday night, openly sharing his grief with a warm and receptive audience. The singer paused for a moment to collect himself, then added, “Life is short. Create something with every breath you draw and make it count.”

And Sessanta is proof that he lives by those words, as the tour is one of the more unusual arena outings in recent memory. (The Local Spins interview with Keenan here.)

Ostensibly a celebration of Keenan’s 61st birthday – the tour, named after the Italian word for 60, launched in 2024 for his 60th, and spilled over into ’25 – it featured equal time for two of the vocalist’s bands, Puscifer and A Perfect Circle, as well as his good friends in Primus.

Indeed, late in the show, Primus brought one its famous friends on stage to join the band — bluegrass phenom and Ionia County hero Billy Strings, who strapped on an electric guitar for “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver.” Billy, of course, will be back on that same arena stage for two straight homecoming shows with his band Friday and Saturday.

The three groups on Wednesday rotated three-to-four-song sets for two-and-a-half hours, frequently sharing and swapping members, with three drum kits perched on a riser, sometimes all played simultaneously.

The evening began with a video in which Keenan, in character and dressed like an unholy conglomeration of Pee Wee Herman and Max Headroom, warned that any audience members violating the no-cell-phones policy would be ground into Spam. (No, really.) It ended with an all-band-members-on-deck super-jam through Puscifer’s “Grand Canyon.” And the sets in-between flew by.

You know how you sometimes watch even a great band play for more than two hours and start to notice the ache in your back more than what’s happening on stage? That doesn’t happen with Sessanta. It’s ingenious in its pacing and concept – and design, highlighted by a tasteful light show with diverse color palettes curated for every set, and creative candle and curtain effects.

It also can be rather goofy. Some band members rested on couches on either side of the drum riser, cheering and applauding the other bands; I spotted Keenan bopping to the beat and playing air guitar during the first Primus set. At one point during a Puscifer set, members of A Perfect Circle played ping pong on stage.

Shortly thereafter, Keenan and fellow Puscifer singer Carina Round played Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots during an instrumental portion of the song – an absurd shrinking of the Sessanta mega-spectacle down to a 12-inch-by-12-inch plastic board game.

AN ECLECTIC COLLECTION OF CREATIVE MINDS ON STAGE

It quickly became clear that Sessanta is about more than seeing these individual bands play. They’re odd ducks in the modern-rock aviary in 2025: Primus, still as indescribably weird as they were at their ’80s genesis and in their ’90s commercial heyday, are the rare band of influence who seem impossible to imitate.

A Perfect Circle, formed in 1999 by Keenan and guitarist Billy Howerdel during one of the singer’s breaks from his more famous band, Tool, is a moody and atmospheric outfit occasionally spiked with a catchy hook (the pejorative description is Tool Lite, but that’s not fair, considering they show more influences from The Cure or Depeche Mode than Black Sabbath or King Crimson).

And Puscifer has grown from a jokey Keenan pet project of sorts into a lightly theatrical act with a cult following and multimedia projects.

It’s an unusual conglomeration of bands, none of which would likely headline arenas. But together, they’re an eclectic collection of creative minds functioning on a similar enough wavelength to make the concept work, and draw about 7,500 people to Van Andel Arena, the lower bowl of which was filled.

It struck me at one point that likely the most recognizable song performed Wednesday, Primus’ “Jerry Was a Race Var Driver,” boasts a chorus consisting of essentially a pinched exhalation. No lyrics, just a strangely delicate “Ahhhhhhhhh.” That’s Sessanta’s oddball allure in rough microcosm.

Not that other hits weren’t aired out – Primus’ “My Name is Mud” and “Winona’s Big Brown Beaver” got heads nodding, and A Perfect Circle’s debut radio single “Judith” was a bold, muscular highlight.

Puscifer, active in the live circuit since 2009, stands to capitalize on the exposure, and on cuts like “Polar Bear” and “Postulous,” wasn’t too far removed from A Perfect Circle’s brand of brooding melodicism.

A Perfect Circle opened the evening with an industrial march, “Counting Bodies Like Sheep to the Rhythm of the War Drums,” wallowed through the murk of “The Doomed,” and roused the crowd with the big dramatic crescendo of “The Outsider.”

Puscifer, which features Keenan and Round as co-lead vocalists, sometimes reminded me of a band that would have been on the fringe of the Wax Trax Records roster in 1994; “Bullet Train to Iowa” and “The Humbling River” were standouts.

And Primus bassist/vocalist Les Claypool fwabbadap-slapped his bass like he, and only he, could; new drummer John Hoffman proved his mettle on “Duchess and the Proverbial Mind Spread” with a blistering solo accompanied by Larry LaLonde’s signature syncopated guitar skronks.

Between songs, Claypool shared how Keenan took him and other tourmates on a sightseeing trip to Ludington earlier this week, and treated them to ice cream cones. “That’s a true friend!” Claypool quipped.

The show was divided into three acts with occasional brief intermissions featuring video skits of Keenan as a decrepit old man in a wheelchair mumbling incoherently or telling godawful jokes, lest you worry that Sessanta is naught but his ego trip.

By the final stretch, the bands more frequently broke ranks for collaborations: All three drummers pounded their way through A Perfect Circle’s “Kindred,” Howerdel and others joined Primus for “Southbound Pachyderm,” Keenan sang backup on Primus’ “Pablo’s Hippos” and the aforementioned show-closing mega-jam was a mighty tight racket that put all bands on the same musical footing.

“And that is how you turn 61,” Keenan said to raucous cheers.

No doubt, he made this one count.

PHOTO GALLERY: Sessanta at Van Andel Arena
Photos by Anthony Norkus

---

SET LIST: Sessanta at Van Andel Arena
Setlist.fm

Copyright 2025, Spins on Music LLC