Apr 28 2011 @ Talking Heads Southampton, UK

Firstly, The Talking Heads is a very odd venue (although the closest Fishbone have ever played to my home...a 30 minutes drive, which was nice!)It holds about 250 people, but has no dressing rooms, so the tour bus just pulls up into the car park and the band walk from there through the crowd to the stage. I had only seen fey English indie band Chapel Club there before, although one of my mates saw New York Dolls there, so it has an interesting variety of bands.

As we were having a drink in the car park, we were able to chat with Angelo, Norwood and John Steward (who nearly broke a picnic table when he sat down for a chat). Rocky walked passed without uttering a word! We also got chatting to Lionel from Paris who had come over as he had never seen the start of a Fishbone tour before! He also proudly told me that he appears in the Live in Bordeaux DVD more than John McKnight!

The support band were a local band called Toupe who had not played together for 5 years as their bass player had moved to Australia, but he had returned and they had reformed especially to support Fishbone in Southampton and Brighton!

The pre-gig talk was all about whether Dre would be there as he had missed the London gig the night before. Angelo and Norwood both shrugged when I asked them if Dre was going to be there! His keyboards were set up on the stage, so we were hopeful, but when the band came on there were only the 6 of them. What instantly struck me was how much more of a band they appeared than the previous twice I had seen them. Walt and Angelo seemed to be really enjoying each others' company. Rocky was centre stage to Angelo's left, rather than hidden behind the speakers, and he and Angelo could not stop grinning at each other, although when Angelo held his mic out to Rocky he shut his mouth and grinned!

The venue was busy, but not very full and was made up of an audience that looked like about 20 hardcore fans and another 100 or so interested people. For Unyielding Conditioning and The Suffering, Rocky's guitar was not working properly, so they played almost as a 5-piece. Jay played the trombone well, but looked a little stranded playing at the edge of the stage in front of Dre's empty keyboard. Norwood was right in front of me which meant that I had his bass a little loud in the mix, but he seemed to be enjoying himself too.

The crowd were a bit quiet until Everyday Sunshine when Angelo jumped into the crowd and started dancing with everyone until for some reason a youngish lad got him in a full-Nelson! Angelo's response was to drag him on stage and throw him into the crowd! After that, the crowd warmed up and it was quite a lively mosh-pit at the front, especially for Ma & Pa and Date Rape. It was then that the whole atmosphere suddenly got even better as Dre charged through the crowd and hopped onto the stage just in time to sing the last line! He then jumped into the crowd and danced and hugged us all during the instrumental outro!

From then, he sang a lot, but was obviously having problems with his keyboards as 2 soundmen spent most of the rest of the set on the stage with him, which was not a problem as they ended with their guitar-driven songs like Give It Up and a stunning version of Sunless Saturday with the outro played by Angelo on Alto Sax.

The band then went off, apart from Walt who hid behind the speakers and growled at the audience to make some more noise until they bounded back on again. I had Angelo's set-list at my feet and the encores said Alcoholic, Lyin Ass Bitch and Party, so it was a joy when they broke into Question of Life, which I don't think I have heard them play for decades. Alcoholic was then the highlight of the night with Dre stealing the show in the second verse and stage-diving and crowd-surfing for a lot of the song. They ended with a very long version of Party with the odd sight of Angelo holding the mic out to moshers at the front who did not know the words!

At the end, the band wandered into the crowd, had drinks, chatted and had their photos taken, which was really nice.

I have to say that Fishbone have never been my out-and-out favourite band, BUT everytime I have seen them live, they have been the greatest band I have ever seen! I have seen them in most incarnations...the original 6-piece, the 7-piece with John Bigham, the 5-piece with Spacey, the 7-piece without Walt...and they have never been less than stunning live and, once again they were truly great.

It is slightly sad that they are now playing small provincial venues in England, but I will not complain as long as they keep coming back!

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