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