These gigs featured a stupendous opening to the main act and prior to that one of the worst support acts (Foghat) I have seen. They were loud, played crude guitar and were full of themselves. Back to Beefheart. The opening featured first of all a ballet dancer followed by a belly dancer with a distorted backing track. Just as you were digesting them on came the amazing Rockette Morton prancing around the stage in his stockinged feet playing a freeform bass guitar solo. There was also a cigar-lighting hiatus in the solo. When it came to an end Rockette started the deep, heavyweight, floor-shaking bass riff from "When it blows its stacks" and then the Captain's amazing voice sang the first line from the song. At that point you were absolutely with the programme and in the zone.
The band were all bizarre and eccentric but in a nice way. Winged Eel Fingerling was at the back of the stage facing away from the audience as he played some amazing unconstrained lead guitar. Zoot Horn Rollo played slide. Ed Marimba was on drums. Orejon (Roy Estrada in real life) played a normal bass to add to Rockette Mortons bass which he played like a rhythm guitar.
Beefheart played a searing sax as well as vocals.
The gig was touring The Spotlight Kid album and so included a number of tracks from that as well as earlier stuff from Trout Mask and Lick My Decals Off. Apart from the opener the other tracks that stood out for were "I'm going to booglarize you baby", "Peon" and "Abba Zaba" but the whole gig was immense.
Always one for the clever pun, the encore was just the Captain singing "More".
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