May 13 2003 @ The Middle East Club Cambridge, MA

Set list: pretty much what's being played night in and out, apparently.

Highlights:

A revised "A Selection", with a killer reggae intro, Walt toasting and trading lines with Angelo ... didn't even recognize it at first, so not sure if the words were even the same. Much improved over the original, IMO!

Unyielding Conditioning: Good God, that Angelo Moore sings with the voice of an angel sometimes, doesn't he? During this and the next song, Lemon Meringue, I kept thinking (as I often do) that songs as good as these seem to have a 99% chance of being huge hit singles ... but Fishbone (and the reality of their surroundings, label, racism, defections, etc.) somehow manage(d) to nail perfectly the conditions required to secure the 1% chance that the public at large would never even hear these songs. Goddamnit!

Walt: Someone else mentioned that he's seemed to come to life recently, and I must concur. Before Unyielding, he introduced it as a song for "old motherfuckers" ... then "that's OK, I'm an old motherfucker too!" ... "let's hear it for old motherfuckers!" (crowd: yeah!). Then before Lemon: "this is for pussy eaters" (crowd: yeah!). Next: Everyday Sunshine: "this is for happy people" (crowd: yeah!). Walt: "Fuck happy people!"

Swim: Never one of my favorites, they played an absolutely mind-scrambling version of this, slow as molasses and smoldering with intensity ... this was the last song before the encore, and watching the band on stage I kept thinking (as I often do) that a single stationary video camera aimed at the stage could result in a "video" more visually interesting and attractive than 99% of of the million dollar cut-and-paste quick action videos that seem to capture the minds and hearts of the MTV generation (let's hear it for old motherfuckers!)

No real "low-lights", but a few other thoughts / comments:

Keyboards: Sign me up with the crowd wishing there was a 6th member on stage; there aren't many specific moments at which I wished there was a keyboard player, but the overall sound just isn't as full and hyper-active with fewer players. Angelo didn't play the theremin much at all last night, but even that doesn't replace an organ/keyboard.

Spacey T.: Really nice guy, from everything I've seen and heard. Obviously very competent on his instrument. Good team player. But he has yet to do anything that really made me sit up and pay attention, or look at him for more than 30 seconds at a time, or want to put on the headphones to REALLY hear what he's doing. I know Spacey's not going anywhere, but 10 years down the road I still miss Special K.

New tunes: And on the subject of Kendall Jones, I continue to maintain that the area he's missed most is NOT his guitar playing, but his song-writing. The band seems to be having a hard time coming up with a catchy chorus these days ... well, that's not entirely true, they recently wrote "Lose Our Minds" ... but of course seem to have forgotten it. Too many of new songs have a chorus consisting entirely of the shouted song title: "Skank 'N Go Nuts", "Frey'd Fuckin Nerve Endings", etc.

The future: I wanted to weigh in on the "who to tour with" debate, so will now that I'm on a roll .... so much of the music business, as with life, is about an intangible called "momentum". Bands that have a chance to break big are those that are PERCEIVED to be on the upswing, really going somewhere ... and identifying Fishbone with bands that are clearly PAST their commercial prime is, in my opinion, not the way to go. I know, clearly, that Fishbone themselves are identified as over-the-hill, but I STILL believe that can/could change, though every day my hope that the band will get their business shit together -- which is absolutely necessary for that success to happen -- continues to fade.

Summary: I love Fishbone! I dread the day they cease to exist -- partly because that will mean less extraordinary music in the future, but partly also because the loss of these people who have been such a huge part of almost HALF of my life (born '67, baptized in Fishbone ' 86, so 19 years w/out Fishbone, 17 years now with them!) will make me feel even further removed from my "youth" than I already am (but try and pretend I'm not)!

I feel that far too many music lovers around the world have missed out on a truly revolutionary band. I wish that weren't so, and still hope that it will change someday. I'm going to plaster some stickers around, and maybe some DJ somewhere will see it, decide to play "Lemon Meringue" on the air, and fans will dig it, call the station, request it more often, and before long an old tune will spread like wildlife across the nation -- hey, it really happened before, with UB40's cover of Red Red Wine.

In your darkest hour, in your time of need, persecution and pain will reign -- but you gotta make the rain, sunshine!

Steve

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