Sep 21 2002 @ Eugene Celebration Eugene, OR

The Eugene Celebration is a 3-day family oriented festival based around music, food community awareness, and various other activities. This year, the Celebration had around eight or nine stages with musical acts playing all the time. Most of the 50+ musical groups are local bands, but we do get a few non-local groups. I've always wanted to see Fishbone play the Celebration, but I never thought they actually would! This year, my wish came true.

One of the best things about the Celebration is that the bands get to play to a wide variety of people. You can buy a pin for $10 and get into the festival all three days. My girlfriend and I got to the show a few minutes early and the parking lot was already getting full. From what I could tell, most of the people were of the high school and college ages.

Fishbone got started late, but when they came out, they came out with a vengeance. They started out with Excuse Me (I thought that they started out with Let Dem Hose Fight, but the set list says they played Excuse Me) and then moved into Nutmeg World. I hadn't remembered the order of the songs, but the sound engineer snagged a copy of the set list for my girlfriend. Here's a list of the songs they played:

Excuse Me Nuttmeg World Shakey Ground Cholly Alcoholic Karma Tsunami Premadawnutt Sunless Saturday Riot In The Heat of Anger Ma & Pa Skank and Go Nuttz I Wish I Had A Date Are You Wit It (I don't remember hearing this) Aids and Armageddon (I don't remember hearing this) Freddie's Dead Demon Swim

Now musically they were good, but it wasn't the best show I've seen. The mix was really good (thanks Doug!). During the first half of the show it seemed that like they weren't synched on a few of the songs. They sounded like they were a lot more together during the second half of the concert. John did a great job on drums. He tore it up before (and during) Karma Tsunami. I wasn't as impressed with Spacey this time. I know that Spacey is an excellent guitarist, but he didn't let loose as he has in previous shows. That seems really weird to say since Fishbone's set was pretty hard. They didn't have as much of a funk/groove going on.

One of the highlights of this show was when they played Sunless Saturday. Sunless Saturday is one of my favorite songs and last time they were here they didn't play it - the song was part of an encore that didn't get played. I also got to talk with Angelo after the show. I've talked to him several times but he never remembers me. I didn't get any good information out of him. Angelo was trying to pack his equipment so I didn't want to bother him too much.

Anyway, I had a blast at the concert. And now I'm off to catch some Zs so I won't be tired for tomorrow's festivities.

Take it easy. Chris Schatz

<<<