my ears are still ringing, but from the stereo in the car blasting this 12
minutes long version of servitude. This definitely was for me the
highlight of friday's gig along with 'when problems arise' I was a bit
disappointed by the turn out - there were almost more people waiting in
line to get into the club after the show for an after party than for the
gig itself. I'll try to say things Arno hasn't told you yet.
Tunes they didn't play (from their current setlists):
swim
shakey ground
behaviour control technician
ugly

those were deeply missed, but the show clocked at over a coupla hours.

I have to tell you more of servitude. After the gig, john steward told me
it was the first time he played it live, so i guess it might be the first
time since chris quit, but i'd have to check, i think i have it on a post
chim chim tape from 96. They started it normally, with angelo mimicking
chris' voice. on the recording, it sounds very very close to the original,
i'm even wondering if it was not angelo singing on the original. McNutt on
guitars too. After 4 or 5 minutes, Spacey and mcnutt go into a solo frenzy
with john banging the drums, with the rest of the band already backstage.
the song went on for 12 full minutes, a nice change from the classic swim
ending.

Since the last time i saw them (september 99), john got even tighter. At
the time, he was just doing his job. now he's a damn overachiever, filling
in and kicking as much as he can. imo, we're very close to fish now.

Anyway, overall, i felt this show was a bit below last year's one, mostly
because fucked up sound engineers not able to get a decent mix on stage and
out front. The Paradiso is a transformed church, so it tends to echo a
bit. my guess is that when the soundman understood he was not going to
tame this one, he just kranked the levels to hide his shortcomings.

The copy on minidisc turned out ok though, but not incredible (a bit
muddy). maybe a bit of tweaking on the computer could clarify it.

OK, onto Paris this friday (very cool club Elysee Montmartre - i saw them
there in 91) and maybe cologne on the 4th.

On their last day, they play the dour festival which is not really located
in brussels, but on the fields of Dour about 60km south of brussels. This
is a 4day festival with over 180 bands playing. Fishbone is playing on the
second stage just before Bill Laswell+Jah Wobble.

this is it

Denis

just got home from the Amsterdam show. Needless to say, I had a great time.
I'm not going to give a complete rundown of the show, if only because I've
been standing near the stage and did not take notes. ok, here goes.

They seem into orange. 2 of the shirts for this tour (with the smoking
fish) are orange and Angelo came on stage with an orange bowler hat (not
too sure they are called that, english type of hat, round top) an orange
marching band jacket (short) and orange shorts. Ofcourse, at the moment
Holland is completely covered in orange (our national color) because of the
soccer championships.

Brian, Walt told me to tell you Hi.

They played about 2 hours. Highlights for me were: Question of Life, Give
it Up, I wish I had a Date, Karma Tsunami and servitude. For those that
want it, I can give a complete setlist (thanks to Denis, who was also there
with his brother, I missed Bartek).

I gave Walt the first version of the Nuttwork Neighbourhood NuttSack during
the Weed Plant encore and he and Norwood looked at it for a while. Walt
said later that he was very curious as to what was on it. He also mentioned
that his cd will be finished "any day now" (tm).

Contrary to 'normal' shows, mr Moore was not to be seen before the show. As
a matter of fact, they all weren't going through the audience very much.

The show was poorly advertised and was not sold out. In the end it was
nicely filled up (although the balcony was closed), but not crowded at all.
Because of that probably there were only 2 people stagediving: Angelo and 1
member of the audience, who jumped once.

Anyway, I felt they were a lot more at ease and playing with eachother
since the cannabis cup show a couple of months ago. Denis made an audience
recording which turned out pretty good too.

One bad thing about it, the soundpeople had the sound way too loud, which
made the sound really muddy. I'll be able to hear again normally on monday
probably.

I hope I'll see them again in Cologne in a week and a half. They're of to a
good start on this European mini tour.

cheers,
Arno

a little more on the Amsterdam show.

Yeah the sound wasn't too good. You could see Angelo looking at Spacey,
wanting to hear him louder. Also, he was constantly placing the mic
standards with little help from the roadies. To me it seemed like he didn't
get into it enough during the first part of the set.

The opener was Ground zero. That surprised me. And a long version of
Servitude at the end.
I was glad to hear lots of different songs this time.

I hadn't seen Norwood playing acoustic bass. Also McKnight plays guitar
pretty good. On Servitude and a couple of other songs.
I forgot my earplugs. I could have used them!

By the way : if Walt is about to finish his record, I think only mixing
needs to be done. Am I right?
I mean : how can he be working on his album while touring with only a few
days off. Boy they have a busy and tight tour schedule!

Gus