The Fishbone concert on August 2, 1997 at Tramps was worth the fifteen dollars that was paid to the scalper for the ticket. I say this because there were three opening bands for "The Bone". The first was a girl fronted band named Tamara, who looked like a cross between an African American Gwen Stefani and the head leader of Skunk Anansie. Their music was a mixture of soul and rock.

Anyways, the second band was Dub War, a pretty cool band...the leader of the pack was dressed in army gear and kept swinging his dreds around. Their music was pretty decent, a mixture of rap and rock. The third band Snot was pretty cool, I'd say their music was a cross between Korn and Nine Inch Nails, pretty rocking. During their performance, however people started to mosh and surf the crowd...I got hit in the head several times. However, like the time I went to Lollapoloza '96, I convinced myself to stay up front for some ungodly reason. I mean, it's not like my desire in life is to be a groupie of some band (well, maybe a part of me actually wants to bethe band). But, I believe that if I paid money to see a band live, I better get a good view, right? After all, I am not six feet tall and standing in the back of about five thousand people just doesn't leave me satisfied. What's the point if you don't have a good view of the band? It would seem as if I were standing in my room and craning my neck with the radio on.

Then the main attraction came out...by this time it was nearing the eleven o'clock hour...so you can imagine that everyone was tired but pumped up to see what they paid for. The band rocked on until 1pm...they sang their popular songs and "Party at Ground Zero". Their music was a mixture of ska/rock/punk/rap/reggae. When The Bone came up on stage the crowded packed themselves together...Again I felt myself regretting the fact that i was up front...it wasn't until a surfer landed on my shoulder that i decided enough was enough...and headed towards the back to watch the rest of the concert.

just went to the front lines last night--- the boys were AWESOME...

BTW -- complete jumbled setlist follows - if you don't wanna know what
they're doing, don't read the end of this post.....

i've seen the 'bone maybe ...30 times since 1985... and this easily goes
down as one of the top 3 or 4 shows.... for sheer energy, but mostly for
LENGTH of show and song selection... with a quick, obligatory run-offstage
for the encore, they played an amzing 2 1/2 hours!!!! a funk marathon!! Like
funkadelic but way more diverse !!!

Anyway - tho the sound was very unbalanced for 3-4 songs, things sounded
great - theremin, keys and guitar (at first) coulda been louder--

the new keyboard player (he was also on nuttstalk) is awesome, he nails 95%
of all the old parts and also plays, i believe it was a FRENCH HORN...)

the new guitarist was really cool - great ska-skankin sound, and burned some
fat solos.... great team player.. and superficially, reminds one of Kendall
with his head of dreads.. speaking of heads - this is history - Angelo is
TOTALLY bald - this i've never seen...!! yep -not even that tiny scrap
o'dreads... also very bald were Dirty Walt, and Fish -who played the entire
show backing the audience.... he rules!!!! he was truly on top of it last
night..

well - cant wait for wed night - another show - this time near home in lame
ass NJ.... but BTW - here's a list of songs they did - though not in order
- but very accurate...

from "fishbone"
ugly
party at grd zero
VTTLOTFGGF !!!
lyin ass bitch

from "in your face"
when probs arise
a selection
cholly
give it up

"truth and soul"
freddies dead
ma + pa
question of life
bonin in the boneyard..

"reality of.."
if i were a...
housework
pressure
pray to the junki maker
sunless (opened with this!!)
behavior control tech

"give a a monkey..."
swim
unyielding
lemon meringue

"chim chim's"
psychol. overcast
rockstar
mokey dick
beergut
alcoholic

also.... a funkadelic cover i can't recall the name of.. "sweet thing" maybe
and the ole fishbone standard - "skankin to the beat"..

the new three piece horn section (Angelo, Kibby & ?? keyb player) sound fat
- it's a return to the heavy horn shit for sure. Angelo really should do a
sax-heavy album some day - he's actually really good -he'd really shock
people with some kind of hybrid - funk-rock-jazz instr. album. naybe prince
will help out..

what an incredible show... thanks boys.... don't ever give up>

oh - and SNOT was good - what 6-8 songs i saw - very "Korn against the 311
Machine", though ... and they closed with bad brains' "how low can a punk
go" phat.

peace up, andre'

yeah. I definitely agree. The show was majorly slammin. 2 and a half
fucking hours of mayhem. I've seen Fishbone now maybe 20 times, and I feel
that this was one of the best shows. The best since (now this is for you
NY'ers) the 2 times they played at the Palladium (circa Reality) and Angelo
did a flip off of the balcony.
The P-Funk cover was "The Goose", from 101. I could of sworn that I
heard a new song in there as well. I don't know if anyone was paying
attention, but before Fishbone came on stage over the PA they were playing
what sounded like Fishbone songs that I've never heard before. I guess that
it was the new record. Although I could hardly hear any of it clearly, it
sounded slammin.
Did you also notice ow much better Monkey Dick sounded? They slowed down and
grooved up the chorus on that, and Angelo also did a wild Theremin solo on
the intro for VTTLOTFDGF. One of the most fun things of the night was
guessing what the next song was from the intro. For the most part they
altered the intros (especially for the old songs), then modified it back to
the song. I really dug the performances on the songs from the first ep
through Truth and Soul. They performed the songs through the filter of
Fishbone now. They toned down the quirky 80's sound, and beefed up the drums
and bass, which is how I feel the songs should have been produced in the
first place. It was how they always played them live anyhow....

I had been kinda disappointed with all the Fishbone shows since and
including Lollapalooza. They just didn't seem happy. This is definitely a
return to form. As a band they never sounded better. Angelo's still my #1
singer, but his voice isn't quite as good as it used to be. Years and years
of touring have to affect you somewhat. and boy is he bald. It looks like
he even shaved his eyebrows. He's still a great live performer, but he
doesn't act as goofy as he used to, with the making faces and all. The
Tramps stage is tiny and he doesn't have as much room to jump around. They
are older.....
They even seem to have a new sound in a way. The horns and the funk are
more beefed up (may just be from the addition of a keyboard and 3rd horn),
but the music is real bottom heavy, which is great. It's just as skankin'
but it's also thundering. Fish is so fierce. Well, here's to Fishbone
taking us in to the next millenium.....
NIKO

this was the greatest fishbone show i have ever seen. they hit up everything i have ever wanted to hear them play, including a ridiculously perfect Lemon Meringue.  This show was on the heels of their tour with Goodie Mob and De La Soul, so they had a more mixed crowd than usual.  i swear that i boosted method man up into swim position!  he kicked me in the balls on the way up,  but such is life!