Clutch – Palace Theater – St. Paul MN – August 2nd 2023

Clutch with special guests Dinosaur Jr. and Red Fang- The Palace Theater St. Paul, MN 8/2/2023

Review and photos by Tommy Sommers

This was yet another triple bill that really worked. It’s amazing how the promoters are really starting to put together packaged tours of bands that are similar in nature that anyone who shows up to see one of the three should theoretically enjoy all of them.

Red Fang was a band with which I was not familiar. I found them to be remarkably interesting and aggressive. The crowd showed up early and there were many shirts in the audience so their fans clearly showed up to support them. They were the heaviest of the three bands on the bill tonight. They were not quite metal, and they were almost a little bit more grunge from the way they sounded. But I’d have to check out one of their CD’s to be sure. I’ve learned over the many years I’ve been going to concerts but how a band sounds in concert doesn’t necessarily always reflect what their recorded music sounds like,

Dinosaur Jr. got extremely popular in the early 90s and had a couple of radio hits that they played last night. They played well over an hour set to a crowd that really were interested in what they were presenting. It seemed like they fell off the scene for a little while and they’re back now the same way government Mule seems to come in and out of my radar. There are a great three-piece man with some really interesting songs. They opened with a really long instrumental which I thought was a very interesting choice to open a show. They were very tight and soundly fantastic.

Clutch is a band I’ve always admired because there’s something quirky cool about them. A friend of mine remarked on a Facebook post that they reminded him of four guys in the neighborhood together and they would drink beer and play music. That’s part of their appeal because they’re not pretentious at all. They have witty and well written songs. They were by far my favorite of the evening. It’s hard to describe what they do because they are so unique. I do believe they are definitely a band you should pay attention to. If you’re not familiar check them out on Spotify.