Sep 29 1996 @ Boulder Theater Boulder, CO

Okay. Saw the tour here in Boulder, Colorado Sunday night. Much to my surprise, Fishbone did headline. I know that as of late, people on this list said they'd been closing, but awhile ago I got the impression that they hadn't. On top of that, all the posters on campus had De La Soul on top, and the tickets read DE LA SOUL / FISHBONE. So, the good news is that they weren't limited in their time. The bad news is that everyone but Fishbone fans left. I'm assuming that Fishbone joined this tour to try and promote their music to a wider black audience. This has been something they've wanted for many years; black audiences to hear their commentaries on black existance. But by headlining and letting everyone who would've stayed for De La escape, they missed out. In some ways, I wish they hadn't headlined. But then again, they put on an awesome show (as usual) that wasn't limited to 50 minutes, so fuck that. Joi said her album was coming out in January, although the tape samplers she sent out read that the album should be out now. So I guess there was a delay (Gee, that sounds familiar. Didn't the same thing happen with Chim Chim?). She played 4 songs. One was slower, more sensual. The others were more aggressive. The tape has (I think) one full length song with Fishbone, and 2 snippets. One sounds very much like Fishbone, with liberal Theremin and that... drum like thing that Angelo rubs (what's the name of that thing?). Incidentally, whoever said they went to the show where Joi stripped down, I envy you. I was really surprised by how much of the older material was played. Cholly, Question, Bonin', maybe Ghetto Soundwave, all before Joi came on. Then after, they seemed to really hit into the Chim Chim stuff, along with other rockers. It's like they were trying to entice the De La fans to stay for the funk, and hope they'd stay for the whole show. But that just didn't work. Angelo was much more reserved, too. His shirt actually styed on, and he never jumped into the crowd or climbed the speaker stacks. The no crowd surfing thing is easily explained by the lack of a crowd to hold him up (I'm telling you, the place was FULL for De La), but... I don't know. He was still nuts, but nothing like last March at the Fox Theater. The NO STAGE DIVING swigns posted on every monitor really ticked him off, I think, 'cause he was all over the place. So... there you go. Another satisfied customer.

Ryan

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I was at this gig and I'll keep it short because the other reviewer did a pretty good job. In fact, other than my wife and me, he might have been the only other person who stuck around for Fishbone. It was sooooo sparse. I saw them in front of thousands in LA in 91 and couldn't believe this. Luckily the next time I saw them in Boulder, my faith was renewed. This was a pretty good show though ...

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