May 15 2003 @ Magic Bag Ferndale, MI

King's X and Fishbone have both been around for over 20 years, so to see such a crowd for these guys was great. After King's X played, I realized most of the crowd was for them...but I'll get into that later. >From the time the band went on stage until the time they went off, people were going nuts. There was no moshing, but tons of singing along and lots of nodding and hand signals. The band went through a comprehensive selection from just about every album (they played everything from "Cigarettes" to new tracks like "Black Like Sunday"), and the fans ate it up. For those who aren't familiar with King's X, it is a hard-rock band with very infectious bass grooves and sing-along choruses. The band?and the fans?went craziest during "Believe" and "Vision". During "Believe", bassist/lead singer Doug Pinnick gave a nice little commentary on society, talking about how no one ever compliments people or tries to make people feel good anymore. He then went on to compliment the whole audience and tell us how good we are to them. Also, throughout the whole set he kept thanking us and letting us now how much he appreciated our reactions and support. Then the band turned it up another notch with "Visions", during which Pinnick and guitarist Ty Tabor stood side by side at the edge of the stage and got right next to the crowd. Everyone loved it. It's weird: I haven't gone to a show in a while at which the band actually made me feel good?and King's X did just that.

After King's X's encore, what I was afraid was going to happen actually happened: all the King's X fans started to leave, which left the place about half-empty. Fishbone started out strong with "Party at Ground Zero" and didn't seem to mind the lack of audience, but as the night dragged on it really seemed like they just wanted to finish up the set. During the first half of their set, the guys went through a lot of their classics like "Skank and Go Nuts", and "Skankin' to the Beat", as well as lots of instrumentals. For the most part, the band stuck with their older music, only playing one track from their latest major-label full-length. If you have FISHBONE 101 and were at the show, you would have recognized half of Fishbone's set. As the night dragged on and people started leaving, Angelo stopped singing as much and went to playing his vast array of brass instruments. The band even stopped talking to the crowd much. Towards the end it looked as if the band was getting restless, which made the remaining crowd kind of restless, too. There were still a few faithfuls who skanked the whole time, but for the most part it seemed like the band and the crowd wanted the show to end. We didn't even get an encore, just an intense guitar solo by Spacey T. Some of the songs that I was really looking forward to hearing but didn't get to hear included "Ugly", "Lyin' Ass Bitch", "Standing on Shaky Ground", and "AIDS and Armageddon". While it wasn't the best Fishbone performance I've ever seen, I'm still glad I got to see them, because I was one of the few who were mesmerized from start to finish. I truly think the guys in Fishbone are amazing, and it's a testament to their greatness that they still put out great music. Also, I must mention the outfit Norwood Fisher was wearing: an Egyptian tunic that just went over his body. The sides were completely open, and you could see that he was going commando the entire show. That man has balls for wearing that outfit...and I'm sure some of the crowd saw them! Oh, well, maybe the people who booked this tour learned their lesson and won't book two completely different kinds of bands to play together again as co-headliners.

Also during the Fishbone set, I learned that a guy I was standing next to got a blowjob in the bathroom. I wouldn't necessarily be proud of him at all, because the bathroom was nasty...and so was the girl he pointed to as the blowjob-giver. She was a total whore. Oh, well, you gotta do what you gotta do sometimes. Also, there was a creepy stoned guy in the crowd who kept staring at girls' chests until they noticed. If he would have stuck around for Fishbone, maybe he could have got a BJ, too.

Review by Dane Jackson (http://www.skratchmagazine.com/livereviewsJUN03.php)

<<<