Jul 06 1996 @ Warped 96 LA Los Angeles, CA

Well, the ol' Warp Tour hit me and Fishbone's hometown today. I've had enough hardcore punk to last me until my next lifetime. It seems that kids these days like the punk rock quite a bit, because at least half of the crowd at the venue was somewhere around 14-17. And I guess that makes plenty of sense. Raging guitar goes well with raging hormones. I certainly listened to more punk a few years ago than now at my grizzled old age of 22. But it also seems that the skater punk youth of today is pretty damn close minded. Dick Dale really didn't get a sizable portion of the crowd (although I may have been too far forward to really tell), even though he kicked serious boo-tay. So what if he's fifty something? The man made changing a guitar string sound heavy. But the real surprise was that about half of the crowd left before Fishbone. It was obvious that most everyone was there to see NOFX and Pennywise (I saw the latter seven years ago and they STILL suck), so what with Rocket From the Crypt not being totally hardcore, I guess they figured that was enough. Man, Fishbone is harder than they've ever been! Plus they funk it up, skank the place to smithereens, harmonize, etc. But what's the use of preaching to the converted? They played Alcoholic, Beergut, Behavior Control Technician, Riot, Psychologically Overcast, Monkey Dick, and Party at Ground Zero. However, the latter was half as long due to the plug being pulled on them. Now, I've seen Fishbone many times, and they've never had any qualms about yelling at security, sound engineers, the crowd, whatever. However, this time, Walt just waved bye bye, even though they'd only reached the middle of the "Johnny go get your gun" verse. It seems that they were used to the Warp tour doing this to them. Now, it's bad enough that the bands are limited to half hour sets (yes, there were 14 bands, but I'd rather have more quality sets by more quality bands than less quantity sets from more quantity), but why the hell wouldn't the closing band at least get an encore? Can anyone else who's gone to Warpalooza confirm the above? Maybe Fishbone hasn't always been closing during their time on the tour. And finally, from the EVERYTHING YOU EVER WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT ANGELO MOORE BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK dept., at the end of the set, Angie came out, pulled down his fly, and pulled out his cock. All I can say is... he should be very proud.

Ryan

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