Review: Ween – Bring out the Foos: Live 1996

Ween
Bring Out the Foos: Live 1996
Street: 02.27.2026
Rhino Records
Ween = The Frogs x Funkadelic

It’s 1996. Ween is opening for the Foo Fighters at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles. The circumstances surrounding the shows in this tour were interesting: prior to opening for the Foo Fighters, Ween had just finished the fifth leg of their Chocolate and Cheese world tour; a series of concerts that lead guitarist Dean Ween would describe as “absolutely the worst tour we’ve ever done.” The first five legs of the world tour were the first that the duo had played with a proper backing band consistently, playing alongside their producer on bass guitar and Claude Coleman Jr. on drums.

This leg was different however; Ween’s producer Andrew Weiss had opted to stop playing alongside the band, and Coleman had opted to sit this leg out, leaving the duo to return to their Pure Guava tour format. They pre-recorded drums and bass to a DAT machine and played alongside it. This sixth leg of their world tour would be the last time Ween would play in their original format.

And now, here at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles, Ween is about to play “Don’t Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy)” off their previous record Pure Guava, and lead singer Gene Ween is having Mentos pelted at him by a disgruntled concertgoer. This interaction can be heard about a third of the way into the duo’s latest live record release Bring Out the Foos: Live 1996, a record that proves to be extremely unusual for the duo both during its recording and its final release 30 years later.

First, it’s only on CD. There are rips of the CD floating around, sure, but Rhino has certainly not made this album easy to access of their own accord. This is something rare for most indie bands, let alone one with two million monthly listeners on streaming platforms. Even more unusual is the duo’s announced upcoming live record Europe ‘90, which is intended to be sold exclusively on vinyl.

This album also appears to lack the general care that the duo is known for putting into their live records. Every live record prior to this one contained liner notes from Dean Ween, who was infamously nitpicky about the quality control and artwork of the duo’s releases. Not only does this release lack liner notes, but it’s packaged in a cheap cardstock sleeve, and one can very easily scratch the CD while removing it from its jacket. I find it very unusual that they opted to push the release out through Warner as opposed to their own label or a smaller indie label.

There is something unique about this record as it’s the first time we’ve heard live sets from this era in the form of soundboard recordings. The sound can be best described as a much more polished form of their At the Cat’s Cradle, 1992 record. If your only knowledge of Ween stems from tracks like “Ocean Man” or “Push Th’ Little Daisies,” you’ll certainly be in for a shock at just how different the band sounds here. If you’ve never heard a Ween live record, my personal favorite is Live in Toronto Canada (feat. Shit Creek Boys), recorded just a few months later for their 12 Golden Country Greats tour.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this record. Of course I love this record. It’s Ween, and I think Ween is arguably one of the greatest bands of all time. I will ardently die on this hill, and not one of those quick and painless deaths either; one of those slow-burn bleed-out-in-the-snow kind of deaths. But I worry that this sudden release cycle is indicative of further issues.

Ween had gone on hiatus officially about a year and a half ago. We heard next to nothing from the band until last month, where suddenly every album’s copyright was switched to Rhino Records on streaming platforms, their most popular records were suddenly re-pressed and we got two very sudden live album releases.

I worry that the band has finally decided to cash in their chips, and call it quits (which they reserve every right to do after touring for nearly 40 years but is quite unfortunate when paired with the sudden resurgence the band is seeing in the public eye). I worry that this is an indication of management gone rogue; That the lack of communication from the band is because of a web of non-disclosure agreements and lawsuits behind closed doors. I’ve also been known to overthink things. I digress.

This record is a fun listen, and I encourage any fans of the band to pick up a copy. I just hope that this release and the upcoming release of Europe ‘90 prove to be a return to the public light, and not a dead cat bounce. –Ezra Smith

 

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