Small, Sweaty place, over enthusiastic security (he claimed that my dancing was a danger to public safety and threatened to throw me out twice), but they played a blinder - dont know why they dont play Bonin anymore but you cant have everything. band are definately on form at the moment, energetic, tight as a knats chuff, playing varied material, and enjoying themselves - cant ask for any more than that, and Dre Gibson is a definate top addition to the band - played for ages as well, but could have done with another Encore, Damn those venues and their curfews - but if they had of played more, would have missed my train, so probably best.

Come back soon guys

Hi John and everyone else,

As promised, a review of last night's gig.

I'll put the set-list first for those of you who are not interested in my ecstatic ramblings. As the bloke next to me got Rocky's set-list, this may not be one hundred per cent accurate, but I will do my best...I think all the songs are there, but perhaps not in the right order in the middle. I am sure Colin and Roo-face will correct me if I'm wrong!

Unyielding Conditioning
Greetings From Ja (???)
The Suffering
Everyday Sunshine
Face Plant
Frayed Fickin Nerve Endings
Karma Tsunami
Date Rape
Skank 'n' Go Nuts
Freddie's Dead
Hide Behind My Glasses
Primadawnutt
Let Dem Ho's Fight
Forever Moore
Ma 'n' Pa
Party With Sadaam
Ugly
The Devil Made Me Do It
Subliminal Fascism
Sunless Saturday

ENCORE

Behind Closed Doors

Overall impressions of the band are that they are a storming live band...very different from the 5 piece version I saw at the same venue in 2002 with Walt and Spacey, but perhaps more in keeping with the old 6 and 7 piece I saw in the late '80s and early '90s. The big difference from 2002 is that the guitar was the main instrument then, whereas the new sound is very keyboard and brass heavy (as someone criticised the new album for being)

The band look great with 5 of them up-front and basically now having 5 front men...from left to right
-McKight, singing, playing guitar and trombone (often in the same song) and stepping in on keyboards to let Dre come up front
-Curtis ( a little ball of energy) playing trumpet and singing and dancing with Angelo and acting out songs, especially Primadawnutt
-Angelo, more energised than last time out
-Norwood, resplendent in sparkly pink rabbit ears, playing astonishing bass-lines and singing
-Rocky standing quietly on his own, almost hiding behind the speaker stack (except for smashing his guitar into the monitor at the start of Subliminal and cuddling Angelo and Dre for the outr to Sunless)
-Dre is the fifth front man, crowd surfing with Angelo during Subliminal, snow-boarding (with no board!) into the crowd during face plant, singing the intro to Skank from the mosh-pit!It is just a shame that he spends so much time behind his keyboards...if they could get another keyboard player, he and Angelo would
be great together up-front.
-John Steward kept it all together with his playing and did the rap in Face Plant and echoed many of Angelo's between song chat!

The band seemed to be enjoying themselves more than 2002 and there were far more people at the venue. Loads of them bought SSIYT at the merch stand at the end. I had a chat with Curtis and Dre at the end...thoroughly nice people obviously having a great time in the band...and they said they would be back in February, which would be great.

Other random thoughts:

Seriously funky Everyday
Stunning version of Sunless
Norwood's amazing bass playing during Frayed
Dre effortlessly picking up lead vocals when Angelo picked up his sax

Finally on a personal note, it was really nice tospend the evening with Colin (even though I should aplogise for my opening line of "You look even older than me", which fortunately he was!!!) Also nice to meet Roo-face and his female friend whose name I missed, with a stunning green mohican...a shame they arrived late as I only had a chance for a brief chat at the end.

Even finallyer (honest!) I was gutted at the end as the Extra Large tour hoody, the Mercg guy had put to one side for me had been sold and they only had small ones left, so I missed out...aaahhh!!!

Love and Even More Rambling then Usual!

Paddy

I wrote this before I could access email so it duplicates some of what Paddy said (apart from the old comment! huh!)

End of Tour Blast! I think this was the best Fishbone gig I?ve been to! The gig at the Cannabis Cup was special because it was the Cannabis Cup but this was better! The atmosphere was much better than when I saw then in Birmingham with the crowd seeming to more into the music. Wolfunkind were on fine form doing a slightly different set to when in Brum (and their CD was cheaper at ?5 instead of ?8!) and they really grabbed the crowd and got them into the mood. Angelo joined them again for ?Martine dances with Wolves? but also for one song John Steward took over drum duties. I noticed Rocky George watching from the sides as well.
A notice on the stage said FB would be on at 9pm and that the curfew was 11pm ? but the ?Bone ignored that deadline! Sadly, I thought that the car park where my car was, closed at 11.30 so I left at 11.15 with Angelo saying that they were going to carry on and ignore the curfew ? sadly as I was wrong and it closed at 12.30! d?oh! So I could have stayed although Paddy's review show's they didn't so all I missed was chatting with curtis and Dre - double d'oh!

I think Paddy is right about the set list - although what he fails to mention is that the "bloke" pushed in front of Paddy after a bouncer thought Paddy was causing trouble and was having a word with him!

Angelo got snogged twice by a girl stood next to us (at one point she was trying to get his trousers off while he was singing from the barriers in front!) and was jumping around, doing cartwheels and crowd surfing like I?ve never seen him before. Dre also crowd surfed although he came a cropper a couple of times and ended up head first between the stage and the crowd barriers. All the band seemed relaxed and happy although Rocky had a few power cable problems.

10/10

Colin