Apr 05 1998 @ Milk Bar Jacksonville, FL

So its Sunday night and Fishbone is playing at the Milk Bar, a pretty cool although rather run-down bar downtown in downtown Jacksonville. As you can imagine, since Fishbone is my favorite band, I am way psyched to go see them, so I limit my usual Sunday beach partying and drinking so that I will be relatively sober for the show. Relatively...

Anyway, after hosing a few beers and getting thoroughly baked, I go across town to my friend Phat Pat's (he's the guitar player for the band NuckleHead). We get even more baked and hose some more beers, but he and his girlfriend are broke and don't plan on going to the show. So I pony up $20 so they can buy tickets, and we're off to the Milk Bar.

When we got there we hooked up with 2 other of my friends, Jay and Brian, the guitarist and drummer for this band called Pull, who will be doing some shows later this year with Limp Bizkit and Cold (2 other Jacksonville bands we know). We start killing some beers and watching the second opening band (we missed the first band) called Al's Not Well. They were kind of weird but sounded pretty good. Well, one of the singers was a babe, at least, and she threw a prop at me and winked so I was in love.

Anyway, after a short intermission Fishbone comes out on stage and I am psyched needless to say. Unfortunately there were probably only about 150 people at this club, which holds about 800, so Angelo looks kind of disappointed at first when he comes out, but within a few songs you could tell he was getting into it heavily. I couldn't tell you the set list, guess getting baked fucks with your short term memory, but other than "Swim" they played all my favorite songs. Especially uplift were Beergut, Sunless Saturday, and Monkey Dick. I was disappointed in the small crowd but had plenty of room up front and did not get crushed by the small-but-potent mosh pit.

One good thing about the milk bar is that the stage is only about 2 feet high, with no retaining wall, so if you're up front you are only about two feet from the guys on stage, almost at eye level (I'm tall). Needless to say you get a lot more out of the show when you are that close and can see the expressions on their faces and see the chords they play (I play guitar) . Well I make a few trips to the bathroom to burn one and re-up my buzz, and the second time I get back I see my friend Brian up front with these two girls I know, so I get right at the stage with them.

Well these are two really wild sexy leather-pants and halter-top wearing hottie bisexual girls, and they are right in front of Angelo, making out as hard as you can possibly imagine 2 girls making out, grabbing & licking each other's tits and crotches, doing simulated sex acts, and some other stuff I can't mention if you're under 21 in the state of Florida.

After a few songs of this Angelo is making comments between every song about these girls going down on each other and the like, and the other guys in the band are coming over to that part of the stage just to get a better look. Meanwhile I am giving Angelo high-five's and he is obviously more into this gig now that there are some lesbians to watch, not to mention that they are grabbing his crotch and licking his microphone cable the whole time. Norwood's eyes are bugging out of his head watching all this, and all the guys are fucking up their parts every time these 2 girls start going off hard on each other. Angelo's asking the audience if anyone has a strap-on, etc... Its just a general cluster fuck on stage... I could tell the band was loving it.

So Fishbone rocks the house for maybe an hour and a half, two hours, plus a few encore songs, then they cruise off the stage after getting hugs and kisses from the girls. Well I am about deaf from being right up front the whole time, and we all stagger out of the club. Well all my guy friends left, so its just me and the two girls, who had lost their car key and were looking for it back in the bar. Meanwhile I am talking to Norwood and the guitar player outside the bar. The girls come back up (the bar is in the basement) and Norwood starts talking some shit to them, next thing he says "Hey let's go on the bus and party" so me and the 2 girls get on their tour bus, which is nice as shit and all tricked out with 2 lounge areas and a lot of sleeping cubicles.

We grab a few beers out of the cooler (all good shit like Guinness, Bass, Harp, Heinekens), Norwood remarks how I grab a Harp and its his favorite, and we go back to the back of the bus. So its me, the 2 girls (still all over each other), Norwood, and the keyboard player (who's name I never caught), and also the bass player from Al's Not Well. Back in the back is Dirty Walt and a beeg-ole pile of dope, and he's rolling up some blunts. We all pile in the back lounge, which is tricked out in all leather and has a jam-up stereo built into one wall with a TV, and we start smoking some fat blunts. One girl did not even smoke dope, but it was such a full on dope cloud in the back of the bus that she got wasted off her ass via contact buzz. I was as baked as you can get without complete lung failure. We are all talking shit and laughing our asses off and its pretty cool because , in spite of the fact that we're white and they're black (and 'famous') its just like hanging out with some old friends (well I guess they are old friends in one sense, many of the funnest moments of my life were related to Fishbone and their music).

So we just talked a lot of shit while listening to some P-Funk bootlegs, drinking beer and smoking so many blunts I can?t even remember how many. I don't even remember what all we talked about I was so baked, but Walt said they had an album in he can and were just waiting for a deal. We talked about Norwood's basses, previous shows I saw, who Norwood liked to jam with, George Clinton, pussy, Walt's haircut (no dreds) , their wives back home in LA, touring, partying, other bands, you name it. They wanted to know how come I got such fine booty with me, I said "Hell I don't know, I'm not even a "rock star"" (sung like the song I might add). They all laughed. The keyboard player did not say much, although he ended up in the bathroom with both of my girls trying to get some booty. I hated to cock-block him but I wanted some of that for myself, so I pulled them back into the lounge to smoke more blunts.

Anyway after several hours of talking shit and getting baked out of my mind, me and the girls finally hit the road. I never did see Angelo on the bus, guess he was still in the club. I did get baked with him last time I saw them, though, and one time a few years back went out clubbing with him in Jax.

So it was one hell of a gig, can't wait till they come back through again. Also the next day I saw their bus out at the beach near where I live, so I guess they were soaking up some rays before splitting town.

Fishbone rules!

Johnny Baud Fishbone Soldier

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