Clutch and Rival Sons Launch Tour: Set Lists and Video

Clutch and Rival Sons brought a prime selection of heavy rock to New York on Thursday as they began their Two Headed Beast co-headlining tour.

Both bands are celebrating the anniversaries of key albums. Rival Sons turned in an energetic set that covered a lot of their catalog, including six songs from 2014’s Great Western Valkyrie, including “Good Luck” for the first time since 2018. Clutch subsequently performed the bulk of 2004’s Blast Tyrant, honoring its 20th anniversary, while also mixing in additional cuts from their catalog. Set highlights included three songs from 1993’s Transnational Speedway League: Anthems, Anecdotes and Undeniable Truths, which marked its 30th anniversary last year and was the major label debut for the Maryland group.

READ MORE: How Rival Sons Swung for the Fences With ‘Great Western Valkyrie

Fellow stoner rock veterans Fu Manchu are opening the initial dates of the tour and delivered a tight performance that checked a lot of boxes despite their limited time on stage. Serving up two tracks from their latest album, 2024’s The Return of Tomorrow, they also made room for fan favorites like “Evil Eye” and the title track from 1999’s 10 inch, Eatin’ Dust.

For Rival Sons, the night’s performance at at the Brooklyn Paramount found them walking a bit of a wire. “We haven’t seen each other for a good month and a half. Generally, we’ll get together and rehearse for a few days, but we didn’t,” guitarist Scott Holiday tells UCR. “We were really working out the kinks and kicking the dust on deck, which is kind of fun. You show everything and there’s a certain excitement and energy about it.”

According to Buchanan, they eventually plan to play all of the songs from Great Western Valkyrie — including one that they’ve never performed before. “I think it was a really strong record for us and they’re songs that work well live, for the most part. So we regularly play a lot of songs from that record already,” he shares.”We’re really hoping to bring ‘Destination on Course [Slipped from the Rail)’ to the set.”

“It’s got some interesting parts that we weren’t able to work out quickly and for some reason, we just never circled back around on that one,” Holiday explains. “It has this huge choral section that we weren’t sure how we were going to accomplish that properly. It wasn’t going to be with us singing the background vocals. Now that we’re working with Jesse Nason as the keyboard player — he has a Mellotron and all of these interesting things that I think will be able to close these little gaps.”

The guitarist happily acknowledges that they’re the odd band of the tour. “Clutch and Fu Manchu are way more stoner rock than we are,” he laughs. “We’re just fans and kind of enjoy being this black sheep, you know, signing to a death metal label, booking a stoner tour! It was Clutch-heavy last night as far as the fans, but I think we won some fans [also] and it was a really fun night.”

The Two Headed Beast tour continues tonight (Sept. 6) in Atlantic City.

Watch Fu Manchu Perform ‘Evil Eye’ in Brooklyn

Watch Rival Sons Perform ‘Too Bad’ in Brooklyn

Watch Clutch Perform ‘Electric Worry’ in Brooklyn

Rival Sons Set List, Sept. 5, 2024, Brooklyn, New York
“Mirrors”
“Nobody Wants to Die”
“Tied Up”
“Too Bad”
“Good Luck”
“Electric Man”
“Belle Starr”
“Where I’ve Been”
“Open My Eyes”
“Pressure and Time”
“Torture”
“Do Your Worst”
“Keep on Swinging”
“Secret”

Clutch Set List, Sept. 5, 2024, Brooklyn, New York
“Mercury”
“Profits of Doom”
“The Mob Goes Wild”
“Cypress Grove”
“Promoter (of Earthbound Causes)
“The Regulator”
“Worm Drink”
“Army of Bono”
“Spleen Merchant”
“(In the Wake of) the Swollen Goat”
“Subtle Hustle”
“Ghost”
“(Notes from the Trial of) La Curandera”
“Spacegrass”
“A Shogun Named Marcus”
“El Jefe Speaks”
“Binge and Purge”
“Electric Worry”

Fu Manchu Set List, Sept. 5, 2024, Brooklyn, New York
“Eatin’ Dust”
“Evil Eye”
“Hands of the Zodiac”
“Hell on Wheels”
“Laserbl’ast”
“King of the Road”
“Loch Ness Wrecking Machine”
“Weird Beard”