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