Oct 26 1988 @ Axis Boston, MA

Fishbone's unique and grown-up style thrills Axis crowd

TRUTH HURTS AND SOUL HEALS, or so says the new album. Fishbone checked in Wednesday night for a long overdue therapy session in Boston. The sold-out crowd was in desperate need of the healing touch of this Los Angeles sextet's unique blend of styles. Since their spring tour, when they were opening for the LA band the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone has tightened up its collective chops and earned a welldeserved tour of headline bookings. A huge crowd waited on the streets until well after 10pm before the doors were finally opened. By the time the band took the stage, the packed Axis was cooking. Literally. "Lookit," said trombonist Chris Dowd, "There's sweat drippin' from the beams. I think that's kinda cool." Credit goes to the band for whipping the ernergetic crowd into a rabid. slam-dancing, stagediving frenzy. Credit goes to Dowd for swinging off into the low-hanging stage apparatus and showing the crowd how to do it right. There's no doubt the band put in a superlative performance. Balanced against the bad-ass hip hop of drummer Fish and bassist John Fisher (a smallish Magic Johnson look alike) were the R & B horns of vocalist Dowd and backup vocalist Angelo Moore on sax. Dowd played trombone until an over-enthusiastic stage-diver inadvertently crushed his instrument. He stuck with his trumrpet for the rest of the set. Guitarist Kendall Jones added gutsy chops from the Parliament/Funkadelic book. It was the kind of playing the VO5 heavy metal set can only dream about. Biggest and baddest of the night were the Fat Albert theme, a Fishbone favorite, and "Freddie's Dead," a cover of an old Curtis Mayfield song which is on the new album. Fishbone takes the Pat Albert as their anthem, a song which they use to confront the drug menace head-on. "We're gonna have a good time, indeed." Twenty years have made this Curtis Mayfield song more timely than ever. The band played it with a fiery passion, a personal involvement borne out in the music. One could not help but to move and dance and thrash to the beat. "Freddie's Dead" was reprised later on the in the set, as there was plenty of unspent energy begging to burned in that tune. Interspersed were "Party at Ground Zero," and "Slow Bus Movin' (Howard Beach Party)," a searing indictment of the Queens racial incident. Good music, wild times, bruises and sweat, material that matters - Fishbone shows they've grown up. The band displays a rare coupling of musicianship, satire, and social commentary that brings to mind the twisted genius of a George Clinton or Frank Zappa, except Fishbone isn't quite that twisted. They have a sharp edge, just like a razor. Theirs is a focused message and an inspired performance. Leave it to Fishbone to break all of the rules and still remember to move the house.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/archives/VOL_108/TECH_V108_S0898_P008.pdf

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