May 21 2014 @ Manchester Academy Manchester, UK

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The first time I saw Fishbone was at the Academy supported by ProPain, The Goats and Bad Brains on 14th October 1993 (that gig isn't listed on this site BTW but I still have my ticket stub to prove it!) so I was made up that they were returning to this venue.  I was impressed by Clay Pigeon who had a good sound and some pretty decent songs, shame about the lack of people actually watching ...

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It's been years since I last saw a Fishbone show, and I only found out about this one three nights earlier - lots of anticipation on the drive to Manchester. I ordered the tickets online the night before, and was surprised when I collected them to see what low numbers I had - 86 and 87. The world has gone mad when a band like Fishbone is playing small venues to less-than-packed audiences, but we all know the world has gone mad anyway, don't we?

Arrived in the room as they were setting up the mics and drums so got myself a place by the stage and waited. Eventually the band wandered onstage, casually took up their places and started playing, leaving a hole in the middle for Angelo to fill a minute or two later and then the show clicked into gear. And they were great - tight, enthusiastic, hyperactive - by Everyday Sunshine I was thinking this was the best I'd seen. Jay Armant was a f*cking star; never seen him with them before and he was perfect. The whole band looked so together in their black, logo-ed outfits, jammed and jamming side-by-side. Angelo and Jay were out on top of the crowd, their own crew were keeping everything in order, so no nonsense from bad-tempered venue bouncers, all was going swimmingly.

 Then, to my mind, we'd passed the peak. Angelo kept getting shown messages on some smartphone thing, and seemed to get more and more distracted as the show went on, not helped by the fact that he had to leave the stage every time he changed a horn. The rest of the band carried on as before - Dirty Walt in particular was looking very lean and mean and carried the crowd with him, and Jay never stopped moving; Rocky George looked to be having a lot of fun with Jay stirring things up at his elbow, and Norwood . . . well, you know Norwood. His playing on Kung Fu Grip was out of this world, never seen anything like it, fingers can't do that! A shame that John and Paul were hidden behind the front row, such was the narrowness of the stage. I could hear them, though, and it was all good.

I could see a setlist, so I knew the last three songs were something to look forward to, and they didn't disappoint one bit. Sunless Saturday. I love that song. As reported elsewhere on this page, the show ended in confusion with the venue curfew preventing an encore, but there was still some good interaction between Angelo and the audience, and some of the band were back onstage talking with fans as the room cleared out.

Fishbone - I bloody love 'em. 

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Some pictures found on the net

http://p-b-e.smugmug.com/Music/Fishbone/