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FZ/Beefheart/Mothers
Celebrity Theatre
Memorial Day Weekend 1975, first show (you can look up the date; they did two shows over two days). As memory serves these were the last two road dates on the tour; Frank liked to rest the band in Phoenix, so they were in a pretty good mood.
First, for those of you who are not familiar with the venue, let me explain it: The Celebrity Theatre seats 2,500 people in a circle. The stage rotates. There are PA speakers above the rotating stage used to keep the sound equal as the stage goes around.
It sounds horrible.
Rolling Stone once described a Graham Parker show in the Celebrity as "sounds shooting to the back wall and dripping off of it like a hot fudge sundae."
Nevertheless, Frank played there a lot.
Like the Austin show just a few nights before, the band opened with Apostrophe...not a long version but long enough to make sure the sound was fairly uniform with everybody.
Frank then introduced the band and then said, "This song is called "I'm not Satisfied," and the band went into it with Napoleon doing the main singing.
Beefheart sat and waited for his various turns on harmonica and vocals. Finally, at one point, he pulled an orange from his bag and began tossing it into the passing crowd from the stage. He played catch with the crowd for a while then finally stopped.
Songs I remember Don doing: "Sam with the Showing Scalp Flat Top," and "Man with the Wooden Head." ("Poofter's" was performed the next evening; I know this from Bill Lantz, who, while not there, knows a guy who was. This guy eventually gave Bill the lyric sheet Don used for "Poofters," which he tossed to the crowd because it was the end of the tour and he didn't need it anymore.)
Bozzio was unbelievable. My friend even commented on how good he was during the show, and just a few months ago we had breakfast together and we were reminiscing about high school; he mentioned that show and how good it was!
The weirdest thing that happened all night was during an extended guitar solo, an obvious groupie walked up to the revolving stage as Don was rotating by and whispered something in his ear. A HUGE grin came across the Captain's face, and he started laughing pretty hard. He then got up and whispered the message to someone else on the stage; same reaction. This continued until finally Napoleon walked up to Frank, whispered the message, and HE started laughing, while still playing his solo. I don't know what she said/promised/suggested but everybody in the crowd that night must have been shaking their heads wondering about it.
Songs I remember hearing that I haven't mentioned yet: Camarillo Brillo, Advance Romance, Carolina Hardcore Ecstacy, POSSIBLY Torture Never Stops, and God knows what else. I do remember they were having a hell of a lot of fun, and I remember both George Duke and Bruce Fowler getting solos.
My friend (who was driving) took "Goodnight Everybody" to mean "let's go" so I have no idea whether there was an encore or what they did.
In retrospect, I read an article by Terry Bozzio recently where he said he never felt comfortable playing for Frank; he was always afraid that Frank would ask him to do something that he wouldn't have been able to do. On this particular night I don't think there was anything TB DIDN'T or COULDN'T do. Absolutely insane.
Send questions, comments, flames to stumark@earthlink.net