It’s a warm Sunday night in Seattle and the Neptune Theater is hosting LA’s ska masters, Fishbone. Fishbone, although primarily a ska band, play a variety of musical genres from fusion, to rock, and even some rap poetry tossed in.
Sax player and main vocalist, Angelo Moore never stays in one spot very long before he’s leaping and prancing about the stage, leaning into the crowd and egging them into an enamored frenzy.
The rest of the band is just as energetic, making it difficult to decide which member to watch, lest I miss something another did. Whether it was trombonist Jay Armant sporting a cape and taking a flying leap off the stage and crowd surfing back, or his stripping his shirt off and bouncing around the stage, or whether it was Walter “Dirty Walt” Kibby riling up the crowd with his vocals and trumpet. This whole band is nothing short of amazing.
A couple times Angelo invited all the ladies on stage and twice the stage was a turbulent sea of musicians and dancing women.
The highlight had to be when bespectacled seven-year-old Cathleen got on stage and performed amazing dance moves to the delight of everyone in the house. She even upstaged the band and that’s quite a fete (as Angelo said, “She blew the geezers off the stage).When she was ushered off stage, Angelo insisted she come back and do a stage dive, which she did with as much, if not more, prowess than those twice her age and size.
As if a pint sized dancer, dancing women, and the trombone player doing stage dives wasn’t entertaining enough, Angelo also performed two or three cartwheels on stage. Musically this band is tight. Their songs are upbeat and encouraged many stage divers.
Fishbone is a band who truly loves being on stage (Angelo particularly was born to be on stage) and truly loved the adoration they got from this small but loyal crowd. I was sorry the show wasn’t better attended. Fishbone put on one of the best live acts ever. Besides the aforementioned, Fishbone consists of John Norwood Fisher on bass (and often lead vocals), John “Wet Daddy” Steward on drums, Rocky George (who sported a giant afro) on guitar, and Paul Hampton on keyboard.
Opening the show were Seattleites The Ethan Tucker Band. These guys play a more bluesy, sometimes country flavored reggae music. Think Johnny Cash or the Eagles doing reggae. This may sound like something that wouldn’t work, but oddly it did. This is a band of stellar musicians, although there wasn’t a whole lot of audience interaction. Toward the end of their set their songs leaned more toward heavy rock where at times they reminded me of Led Zeppelin and this also got many onto the floor and dancing. Ethan Tucker may be a young upstart, but he has the potential to break huge.
Opening the entire evening was another Seattle band, Positive Rising. Fronted by Ian Ayers, who sounds a lot like Bob Marley, but looks more like Tim Armstrong of Rancid with his knit cap. Most their songs are slow and steady and Ian constantly threw out lightning bolts of charisma, often flashing big smiles. Besides Ian Ayers, Positive Rising is comprised of Billy McInyre on bass, Tyler Petersheim, lead guitar, and the appropriately named Mike Drumma on drums. Definitely check them out.
All photos property of Holly Homan, all rights reserved.
