For 2026, we’ve launched a new web series called “Yea, I Was There,” taking short dives into legendary concerts that have passed through Oxford, Mississippi over the last 60 years. We’ll spotlight iconic shows—from B.B. King and Bob Dylan to Fugazi, R.E.M., and countless Proud Larry’s gigs—along with streaming links and videos when available.
We’re also looking for your stories and memorabilia, so if you were there (or still have the poster or T-shirt), email us and help keep Oxford’s music history alive.
WEEN COMES TO OXFORD!
THE BOOGNISH ASKS, “ARE YOU READY?!?”
You either love Ween, hate Ween, or have never heard of Ween. It’s ok no matter where you fall.
Ween has played in Oxford on 4 occasions between 1997 and 2009 according to fan site, brownbase.org. We’re going to touch on all four shows for this entry of “Yea, I was there.” The band only performed in Mississippi one other time on November 23, 1994 in Jackson at Midnight Sun.
Show dates/venues for Oxford: Proud Larry’s on August 1, 1997; The Library on May 1, 2003 and May 3, 2007; The Lyric on October 29, 2009.
First up, Proud Larry’s in 1997
Ween was touring in support of their album, The Mollusk, which was released on June 24, 1997, via Elektra Records. Following 1996’s detour into traditional country (12 Golden Country Greats), this was a massive return to a multi-genre progressive rock concept album with a dark, nautical theme.
This is widely considered the peak of Ween’s creative powers. Both Mickey Melchiondo (Dean Ween) and Aaron Freeman (Gene Ween) have stated that The Mollusk is their favorite record they ever made. Keyboardist Glenn McClelland joined the live lineup full-time in April 1997, cementing the five-piece “definitive” live band setup that played the Proud Larry’s gig. Songs like “Ocean Man” and “Mutilated Lips” were freshly introduced to the live sets.
Ween stopped at Proud Larry’s in between shows in New Orleans and Atlanta during a long summer tour. The show was on a Friday night in Oxford.
If you have a copy of this Ween at Larry’s show and would like to share it, please email us at endofallmusic@gmail.com and we’ll add it to this post. There does not seem to be a recording circulating online. Fortunately, all three of the other Oxford shows have fantastic recordings… read on!
Proud Larry’s 1997 setlist:
I’m Dancing in the Show Tonight, What Deaner Was Talkin’ About, The HIV Song, Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down), Freedom of ’76, The Golden Eel, The Stallion pt 3, Piss Up a Rope, Waving My Dick in the Wind, Sketches of Winkle, Push th’ Little Daisies, The Mollusk, Buckingham Green, I Can’t Put My Finger on It, She Wanted to Leave, Pumpin’ 4 the Man, Mister Would You Please Help My Pony?, Don’t Get 2 Close (2 My Fantasy), Tick, Awesome Sound, Buenas Tardes Amigo, Big Jilm, Baby Bitch, The Blarney Stone, Booze Me Up and Get Me High, Doctor Rock, Pork Roll Egg and Cheese, You Fucked Up, El Camino, Poopship Destroyer, Mister Richard Smoker, Frank, LMLYP
Next up, The Library in 2003
(2003 show flyer from The Cooters instagram page)
Ween played at The Library on May Day in 2003 at the beginning of their spring/summer tour. The Oxford date was sandwiched between shows in Knoxville, TN and New Orleans.
After parting ways with major label Elektra Records following 2000’s White Pepper, Ween spent a couple of years in the independent wilderness. They launched their own internet-only label, Chocodog Records, before signing with Sanctuary Records to release Quebec in August 2003. The May show in Oxford was a pre-release/promotional spring leg of the tour where they debuted many Quebec tracks.
This era saw highly revered, frantic live performances (also immortalized around this time on Live at Stubb’s and Live in Chicago). According to Brownbase notes for the Oxford show, the performance featured a packed, energetic set including a rare live version of “Albino Sunburned Girl” and a tease of their rejected Pizza Hut jingle, “Where’d the Cheese Go?”.
You can stream/download full video of the show RIGHT HERE. This show was bootlegged as a fan-released DVD.
Full show:
The Library 2003 setlist:
Ice Castles, The Golden Eel, Baby Bitch, Where’d the Cheese Go? (tease), Marble Tulip Juicy Tree, Happy Colored Marbles, Take Me Away, The Grobe, Even If You Don’t, Voodoo Lady, Albino Sunburned Girl, I Don’t Want It, Roses Are Free, Push th’ Little Daisies, The Mollusk, Buckingham Green, Laura, Tender Situation, Touch My Tooter, You Fucked Up, Doctor Rock, Zoloft, Puerto Rican Power, Pandy Fackler, Bananas and Blow, El Camino, Buenas Tardes Amigo
Encore: Big Jilm, Poopship Destroyer
And again, The Library in 2007
About the 2007 show poster, which is legendary amongst Ween fans:
The gig poster for Ween’s 2007 show at The Library in Oxford is a highly prized piece of the band’s visual history. Created by renowned concert artist Jermaine Rogers, the screen print was limited to an exclusive run of just 150 signed and numbered pieces.
What makes the artwork stand out to collectors is how it incorporates Ween’s central mythology, featuring a realistic and imposing depiction of The Boognish—the band’s multi-fanged deity. In a style fans refer to as “Boognish & Bunnies,” the demon god looms like a celestial force over a group of Rogers’ iconic, wide-eyed rabbits. The print’s eerie, psychedelic aesthetic perfectly captures the dark, eccentric energy of the La Cucaracha tour, making it a definitive artifact of the band’s history in intimate Southern venues.
There’s one currently for sale on eBay for $350.
Ween returned to Oxford exactly four years later to the same venue. They were touring heavily behind the Friends EP and their upcoming ninth studio album, La Cucaracha, which dropped later that October.
The band was still a massive live draw. The shows featured expansive, career-spanning setlists, closing the Oxford gig with an encore of “Someday” and “Poopship Destroyer.”
La Cucaracha was universally a low point for the band’s internal cohesion. Mickey Melchiondo openly stated in later interviews that despite a few tracks he loved, it was a fractured album that he wasn’t proud of. The creative chemistry between “Gener” and “Deaner” was fracturing rapidly under the weight of addiction and differing lifestyles.
Luckily, there’s an amazing, 3-camera, pro-shot fan video of the full 2007 show. You can also stream/download this entire show via Internet Archive RIGHT HERE. Watch and listen below.
Full show:
The Library 2007 setlist:
Take Me Away, The Grobe, Transdermal Celebration, Waving My Dick in the Wind, Mister Richard Smoker, Bananas and Blow, Voodoo Lady, Your Party, Buckingham Green, Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain, Big Jilm, Woman and Man, Gabrielle, Touch My Tooter, Never Squeal> Drums> Never Squeal, The Final Alarm, Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down), The Mollusk, Push th’ Little Daisies, Zoloft, Baby Bitch, Stay Forever, Piss Up a Rope, Booze Me Up and Get Me High, Fiesta, I’ll Be Your Jonny on the Spot, Iron Man (tease), Ocean Man, Up on the Hill, Fluffy
Encore: Poopship Destroyer> Someday
The last time (for now), Ween at The Lyric in 2009
Read the full Daily Mississippian article by Lance Ingram at the very bottom of this post.
Marking 25 years since they met in a junior high typing class, Ween hit the road in 2009. They had also briefly entered the studio in 2009 to try and record new music, though nothing from those sessions was ever completed or released.
This period showed how deep their live legacy had grown, moving into the larger Lyric Hall in Oxford. Mickey Melchiondo was finding an outlet outside of music, famously obtaining his captain’s license in 2009 to start “Mickey’s Guide Service,” leading fishing trips off the Jersey Shore. Freeman was also exploring side projects, forming “The Gene Ween Band” to play deeper cuts.
The wheels were completely falling off the band structurally. Aaron Freeman’s substance abuse was reaching a critical, life-threatening mass on the road. The failure to produce any music from their 2009 studio sessions was a sign of total creative paralysis between the two frontmen. This burnout and personal crisis directly set up the infamous 2011 Vancouver onstage meltdown, resulting in Freeman abruptly quitting the band in 2012 to get sober, initiating a multi-year breakup.
Here’s a nice review and some photos from The Lyric show on “Rob and Carley’s” blogspot.
You can download The Lyric show from 2009 right here, via Internet Archive.
The Lyric 2009 setlist:
Fiesta, Nan, Transdermal Celebration, Take Me Away, Marble Tulip Juicy Tree, Happy Colored Marbles, With My Own Bare Hands, Baby Bitch, Learnin’ to Love, Gabrielle, Woman and Man, Your Party, Bananas and Blow, The HIV Song, Spinal Meningitis (Got Me Down), I Don’t Want It, Buckingham Green, Zoloft, Ice Castles> The Final Alarm, Roses Are Free, Improvisation> Booze Me Up and Get Me High, The Mollusk, Ocean Man, Stroker Ace, You Fucked Up
Encore: Ohio, Fluffy
BONUS:
Daily Mississippian article by Lance Ingram from November 2009:
Band Ween and its cult-like following to The Lyric Theatre provide an insider’s look at who a musician’s true fans are
BY LANCE INGRAM | Feature Writer
What do you get when you have a concert hall full of diehard fans who worship the band on stage?
Contrary to what you might think, it’s not a Grateful Dead show: it’s a Ween show.
Ween brought an alternative neo-psychedelic punk show to The Lyric Theatre Thursday, Oct. 29 and the Ween fans made the expedition to see the band they adore; one fan even made the 19-hour drive from Colorado just for the Oxford show.
The relationship between Ween and its fans has the magnitude to be registered on the scale of the passionate Deadheads.
Ween draws strong similarities from the Grateful Dead, not so much in its music but in consideration of culture behind the band.
After one brief improvisational jam, guitarist Dean Ween took the microphone and said, “That was our Grateful Dead jam.”
The band has many followers and each took part in a strong sense of community and togetherness. While they waited outside The Lyric, they spoke of previous shows and good times.
Several of the fans had followed the entire Ween tour and for an attendee to have this be their first Ween show was a rare find.
A large gathering assembled outside of the doors before the show. They patiently waited before the anticipa-tion overtook concert-goers and talk of “gate crashing” became a topic of conversation. Jokingly, of course.
Once the doors opened, the band came on and the crowd tried to guess what the band’s opening song would be.
The show had a relatively small crowd in attendance, but that crowd was composed of dedicated, loyal fans who were there to celebrate their band.
The fans knew the songs word-for-word and sang as if they were the choir and the band was the congregation at a Sunday morning church service.
Ween, who has played together since 1984, displayed a strong unity and musical tightness on stage that can only be seen in a band that understands each other and realizes each other’s musical abilities.
The band’s music is largely alternative rock but can also fall into grunge, alternative rock and a splice of Latin and circus-style merry-go-round, with searing guitar solos.
Upon first listen, it could be easy to call them punk but — it just doesn’t seem to do the band any justice because their musical abilities far exceed any other punk-labeled band.
The show consisted mostly of Ween’s older catalogue with a couple of tunes from their 2007 release, “La Cu-caracha,” including “Learnin’ to Love,” which had the en-tire crowd dancing and singing along.
While the majority of Ween’s catalogue consists of rock songs, they still played songs such as “Your Party” and “I Don’t Want It” that showcase the band’s taste of jazz and the beauty of music.
Slow songs aside, the band hit its peak with “Bucking-ham Green,” which showcased an incredibly powerful outro as drummer Claude Coleman took the rhythm section to a new level.
From there the band went directly into the spaced out song “Zoloft,” which had an extended sleepy-time jam that resembled the pill the song refers to.
To the crowd’s delight, the band launched into its big-gest song “Roses Are Free,” though there was a strong sense that Ween was only playing for the crowd and would honestly never care to play it again.
Despite “Roses Are Free,” Ween seemed in good spirits and having a wonderful time on stage performing.
The encore made the show worth admission alone. The encore began with a cover of the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young hit “Ohio,” that was spot on with the original. After that lead singer Gene Ween looked to Dean and said, “Let’s play ‘Fluffy,’” and everyone who was close enough to hear that went berserk.
The lyrics describe a dog who has chewed his leg off and upon first hearing it was easy to question the signifi-cance of this song that made everyone so crazy but then there was the guitar solo.
Dean Ween had shined all night long with technically exquisite solos and lightning precision but his defining moment came during the extended-jam guitar solo of “Fluffy.”
The solo was able to awe concert-goers as Dean shred-ded along the ranks of Eddie Van Halen without the wankery and mindless drivel, and was able to display the passion in his playing while acknowledging how good he actually is.
Most jam bands, such as the Grateful Dead, center their shows on their improvisational jams and spaced-out solos.
While Ween has never fallen hard into the jam band scene they definitely have all of the requirements as far as the culture and to put on a great show.
