This show was scheduled to begin at 8 PM so I arrived a few minutes prior to that time. After finding out that there would be a couple of local openers I went back to my car to sleep for a while as I had a very long day at work and was very tired. I got back to the venue shortly after 10 PM just in time to work my way up front before Fishbone was set to come on.

I've never really been a Fishbone fan but had heard a lot of rave reviews of their live performance so I was eager to check them out. Angelo Moore came on stage and began with a spoken word piece that centered around the lines "living the lifestyle of the rich and famous without getting rich… aint that a bitch" that seemed to be based on the band playing and touring together for so long without seeing any financial gains. The words seemed to be straight from the heart; one could easily tell that he meant everything he said. When his mike went dead Angelo continued on, raising his voice so that his words could still be heard. He then let it be known that this performance would be the last Fishbone performance as the band was calling it quits before the rest of the band came on stage to begin their sonic assault. They tore through a fairly lengthy set with what seemed to be great precision and the intensity of the band and the tightly packed audience grew with every minute. At approximately the midway point Angelo began crowd surfing with his mike, which spurred the audience on to stage dive and crowd surf as well. Once the bigger people started with the stage diving I decided to move back to protect my equipment and allow myself to enjoy the show without having people come down on top of me all the time. After "Sunless Saturday", Spacey T's guitar effects pod was knocked over and broken, causing the set to end before the band could play their scheduled encore of "Party at Ground Zero" and "Fishbone is Red Hot". To sum this set up, Fishbone played a very entertaining set of music that sounded like a cross pollination of punk, ska, rock, funk, and jazz. Each musician displayed a heck of a lot of skill with their instruments, from the many different saxophones of Angelo to the pocket horn of Walter Kibby to the blistering bass lines of Norwood Fisher. Angelo is hands down one of the highest energy frontmen I have ever seen, I hope that he will be able to find another group of musicians to perform with as it seems like music and entertaining is his life and something he truly loves. It's too bad that that Fishbone decided to call it quits but I am happy I was given the opportunity to see them play before that happened.

2004 edit: Fishbone decided not to call it quits after all!

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Next to hit the stage was Texas-based King's X. The crowd was a lot thinner for them but the enthusiasm was still there when Doug, Ty and Jerry came out to play. As usual, they appeared to be very happy to play, each member smiling and sending out their vibe of happiness and love to all in the house. As with each time I have witnessed King's X in the live setting, they played their songs with a degree of perfection that few can boast, evidence why the band is so highly regarded in the usually hypercritical prog rock genre. While the band displays the musical chops that are necessary to the genre, every song maintains a groove and feeling unlike many other bands which focus so much on the skills of the musicians that the music itself comes out cold and soulless. For nearly twenty years King's X has been playing their unique style of music and show no signs of slowing down, it's a real shame that the mass market hasn't picked up on this band, while they can get fairly technical they have enough groove and feeling that they deserve to be better known to the mainstream music world.

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King's X set list:
Groove Machine
Dogman
Believe
Black Like Sunday
Finished
Johnny
Black the Sky
Screamer
Sometimes
Cigarettes
Static
Vision
We Were Born to be Loved
Summerland
Moan Jam

Photos from this show are available in our Photo Gallery