As postings from Ween on its Web site (www.ween.com) indicated, the band is finishing up a new, as-yet-untitled album—but first, a tour of mostly college dates, kicking off in Asheville (right in the backyard of MAGNET’s Southern bureau) and running through the first week of May. Approaching the venue, all signs were good: hirsute music lovers milling about everywhere, vendors flogging tapes and CD-Rs on the sidewalk and one lovely young lady selling some particularly delectable-looking brownies. Uh-huh ...

Once inside, the sounds of Miles Davis’ Bitches Brew poured from the PA. The Thomas Wolfe Auditorium, which is a more or less “polite” room more suitable for sit-down concerts than whacked-out rock gigs, seemed about half-full, although at 8:30, when the crowd seemed to spontaneously rise en masse and move forward to the front of the stage, standing on seats, etc., it was hard to get an accurate headcount. Mic stands sprouted from the area adjacent to the soundboard and a small gaggle of earnest-looking, bearded nerd-types frantically set about fretting over whether to raise their mic heights by an additional fraction of an inch and generally looking like a junior Army corps of engineers hard at work.

Lights dimmed, the five-man Ween strode onstage and the crowd bellowed approvingly. “Buckingham Green” signaled the start of what would be more than two-and-a-half hours’ worth of festivities. The tune’s prog/metal shtick—fog machines, portentous rhythms bolstered by screeching virtuoso solos from Dean Ween, limey-accented vocals from Gene Ween—set the tone: Ween gonna rock you, yes they gonna rock you tonight.

Among the many highlights: an ‘80s-anthemic “Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down)” that could be programmed directly into VH-1 Classic rotation and no one would be the wiser; “Now I’m Freaking Out” (apparently a recent composition), a superb power-pop number in a Nerves/Plimsouls vein, with Gene doing the faux-Brit singing bit again; a number (title eludes me) done up in a vaguely ska/island music style that not only got the crowd skanking but ushered in the first of many stage invasions for the evening (a guy and a gal who wanted to dance arm in arm, while later it would be more of your garden-variety stage-diver/crowd-surfer antics). Plus, for some reason, it set off a chain reaction of hemp-firing throughout the room. Sweet.

“Take Me Away” provided the boogie-cum-freakout that the kids had come for: Gene was front and center clutching his mic and hamming it up, a seasoned lounge/Vegas swinger type strutting and puffing on his cigarette while Dean ploughed into steely riff after riff. More prog/metal courtesy “Don’t Get Too Close 2 My Fantasy,” pure D&D epic cheese complete with a massed falsetto a capella vocal finale worthy of Spinal Tap. “Piss Up A Rope,” twangy garage alt-country with a cool extended piano solo (that got a huge crowd response), contrasted sharply with the song that followed (“Ooh Vah La,” total metal/wah-wah sludge rock), which was in even more startling contrast to the creepy synth-drenched noo wave (“The Mollusk,” more ‘80s damage). People forget how Ween masters any style it sets its collective damaged brain to, and it can stop on a dime and shift gears faster than you can say “Internet IPO.”

Signaling a new segment of the show: “Wavin’ My Dick In The Wind,” featuring a New Orleans-gone-thrash vibe and a god-help-us DRUM SOLO, and something I didn’t get the title of, which was a rather cool rip-off of “God Gave Rock ‘N’ Roll To You.” I think “Touch My Tooter” was in there somewhere, too. “Dr. Rock,” with its total punk/glam/thrash anthemic mayhem, proves Ween should’ve gone on tour with Slade back in the day. “Pandy Fackler,” whose extended electric-piano/synth solo and keen jazzbo arrangement suggests one of the reasons Ween is so popular among jam-band aficionados: think Medeski, Martin & Wood with attitude. My favorite of the evening, the hippie jam blowout (aha!) “Johnny On The Spot,” drove the crowd nuts (Gene was blaring at folks through a bullhorn like Gibby Haynes’ Butthole Surfers exploits of yore) and also gets the “Best Use of Siren Effects in Concert Since Bloodrock circa 1974” award.

The only drawback was the decidedly piss-poor sound, presumably due to the venue’s dodgy acoustics, which swallowed vocals and high end when things got loud (which was often). As noted, this is a sit-down kind of place more used to hosting folk and alt-country shows than twisted rock ‘n’ roll. But everyone left with a song in their hearts and a ringing in their ears—what more could we have asked for?