Jun 23 2000 @ Paradiso Amsterdam, NL

just got home from the Amsterdam show. Needless to say, I had a great time. I'm not going to give a complete rundown of the show, if only because I've been standing near the stage and did not take notes. ok, here goes.

They seem into orange. 2 of the shirts for this tour (with the smoking fish) are orange and Angelo came on stage with an orange bowler hat (not too sur...

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a little more on the Amsterdam show.

Yeah the sound wasn't too good. You could see Angelo looking at Spacey, wanting to hear him louder. Also, he was constantly placing the mic standards with little help from the roadies. To me it seemed like he didn't get into it enough during the first part of the set.

The opener was Ground zero. That surprised me. ...

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my ears are still ringing, but from the stereo in the car blasting this 12 minutes long version of servitude. This definitely was for me the highlight of friday's gig along with 'when problems arise' I was a bit disappointed by the turn out - there were almost more people waiting in line to get into the club after the show for an after party than for the gig itself. I'll try to say things Arno hasn't told you yet. Tunes they didn't play (from their current setlists): swim shakey ground behaviour control technician ugly

those were deeply missed, but the show clocked at over a coupla hours.

I have to tell you more of servitude. After the gig, john steward told me it was the first time he played it live, so i guess it might be the first time since chris quit, but i'd have to check, i think i have it on a post chim chim tape from 96. They started it normally, with angelo mimicking chris' voice. on the recording, it sounds very very close to the original, i'm even wondering if it was not angelo singing on the original. McNutt on guitars too. After 4 or 5 minutes, Spacey and mcnutt go into a solo frenzy with john banging the drums, with the rest of the band already backstage. the song went on for 12 full minutes, a nice change from the classic swim ending.

Since the last time i saw them (september 99), john got even tighter. At the time, he was just doing his job. now he's a damn overachiever, filling in and kicking as much as he can. imo, we're very close to fish now.

Anyway, overall, i felt this show was a bit below last year's one, mostly because fucked up sound engineers not able to get a decent mix on stage and out front. The Paradiso is a transformed church, so it tends to echo a bit. my guess is that when the soundman understood he was not going to tame this one, he just kranked the levels to hide his shortcomings.

The copy on minidisc turned out ok though, but not incredible (a bit muddy). maybe a bit of tweaking on the computer could clarify it.

OK, onto Paris this friday (very cool club Elysee Montmartre - i saw them there in 91) and maybe cologne on the 4th.

On their last day, they play the dour festival which is not really located in brussels, but on the fields of Dour about 60km south of brussels. This is a 4day festival with over 180 bands playing. Fishbone is playing on the second stage just before Bill Laswell+Jah Wobble.

this is it

Denis

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