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Captain Beefheart
              &
  the Magic Band.

   This was the second time I saw Beefheart live.The whole festival was a wash out, security collapsed , the field was flooded. but we still had a GREAT time,.helped along by the likes of  The  Captain, Dr John and the Grateful Dead. I recently got an audience tape of the Beefheart show. Surprisingly its mostly very good. How anyone could tape in that weather was amazing. The sound of the tape is not exactly pristine, but it brought back that wonderful show to me more clearly.Tape quality starts out fairly muddy, but soon gets to B+ to A- standard.


 
Bickershaw:  the day the music drowned.
 
Now Captain Beefheart appears. He's got a big cloak around his shoulders and the rest of the Magic Band are walking about back stage. They've all got overcoats and good leather gloves , plus snaky hats. it looks as though Al Capone and the boys have arrived.

They wait for a full hour onstage before they can get to their instruments and plug them into the amps. Rockette Morton takes of his overcoat and peels off his gloves

He pauses for a moment reaches down into his guitar case , picks out his bass and straps it on. then he puts a cigar in his mouth, lights it and steps out in front on his own.

Then Rockette boogies. he slams massive bass chords and duck walks about the stage. He's fantastic, he's brilliant. He works up a head shivering riff, swings around , sways and walks about pulling thunder from his machine. He acts like THE Mr Rock and Roll -Rockette is a beautiful person .
His introduction done ,the Magic Band come on and join him . There's Winged Eel Fingerling swaying and playing wild guitar in a corner. Zoot Horn Rollo just doesn't look real.He's got a patchwork overcoat on , a massive hat and women's tights on his incredible long -thin legs. thats finished off with a pair of cute lace -ups .

Ed Marimba drums with a pair of ladies panties on his head, his hair swept up neatly through the crotch.

Then The Captain walks into the spotlight. The Spotlight Kid -and he roars and groggles and heaves and spits and snarls and the band reach a confusion of riffing and slammy up -boogied chords. it grinds and it grinds and it clangs like a train , some crazy train . the whole stage is full of musicians who move .

They walk about each other , dip and play guitar from the hip . They're showmen .Its a show and the music is so heady . Its visual. Rockette and Rollo blaze with wonder into  Steal softly through Snow   They must be the best band this countries seen in a long time. 

 'Gotcha whoo, shakey, crazy, shakey, gotcha . whoo. crazy leg" and the Captains back on stage. 

 The Band just won't stop. They hit a climax after about two minutes and it goes on at the same magical level. The playing is so good . Its all so rhythmic. 

 The Captain returns to the back of the stage again and leaves the Winged Eel to Deliver  Alice in Blunderland 

 Eel is really creepy tonight. He scrubs some raspy patterns and even the Captain shows some
 amazement . He points to the Eel and breathes "wow". Everyone on stage is jumping about . its so wild its frightening 

The sky is getting light as Beefheart and his bluesy woozy band blast past 4-am. Nobody got any sleep while Beefheart played, thats for sure. With wind behind him he must have boogied across half of Lancashire. Maybe they heard him in Liverpool. One hopes they did. 

Rockette still moves about, there's no boring breaks. His hats off now and he lights another cigar and runs over to Rollo with another riff to deliver. 
 

 Beefheart was THE best . 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 


 
 
 
 

 
              Yessss indeedy. this was a GREAT performance, although the reviewer sells the Cap'n himself somewhat short. His voice is out of this world. On the accappella  Old Black Snake  he just plays with the word"sucking , over and over and over again, stretching it out almost endlessly. Viruoso stuff. There also was a pretty extended break, where there was a PA problem. Thats why he did Old Black Snake just then which showcased his incredible voice. At the time in the crowd the pa was pretty much dead, so when he sang it was more or less non amplified , but such was the power of his voice that even though I was about 20 metres away you could still hear him clearly , quite a feat.
           Beefs stage wear was also impressive, not as weird as Rollo or The Eel, but spectacular nevertheless. As was his custom during the 1972 tour the Capn was wearing his Sun and Moon embroidered cape, very "Spotlight Kid" looking in his black suit and white  shirt. He really was an imposing figure on stage,a massive presence , he would prowl around during the instrumental breaks and one was drawn to him, no matter what other madness was going on around.

The audience recordings
       There are at least two versions of this show. The more widely circulated of the two is the one that appears on the Grow Fins compilation, but there is another , which is unfortunately incomplete , due to a tape speed problem that restricts its listenable length to about 20 minutes. The unfortunate thing is that its a far better sounding tape than the complete show . Does anyone know of any other versions that are in existence.  ?

Known Setlist.

        Rockette Mortons bass solo -

        The Mascara Fake. 

        When It Blows Its Stacks 

        Click Clack. 

        Grow Fins 

        Hobo Chang Ba. 

        Booglarise You. 

        Black Snake. 

        Peon.. 

        Abba Zabba. 

        Alice in Blunderland. 

        My Human Gets Me Blues. 

        Steal Softly Through Snow. 

        Golden Birdies. 

        Spitball Scalped A Baby. 

 


 

 
 Thus spake the Captain. 
  The Captain addressed us on occasions ,heres the transcript of some of it after Abba Zabba .
"I'd like to introduce the group at this time.
On guitar, Zoot Horn Rollo on guitar.
On bass, Orejon , Orejon on bass.
On drums ,percussion, Ed Marimba. On lights, the Collie , did you see the collie ?  
( I thought this was Comet, but apparently its collie see explanation  ****  below )
On bass , and guitar , Rockette Morton.
Behind the beautiful black be -bops, WingedEel Fingerling on guitar.
Like to do a composition from the Spotlight Kid , and the Spotlight Kid on spotlight, Alice in Blunderland, featuring Winged Eeel Fingerling on Guitar."

  There are a few references to the Spotlight Kid throughout the show, a reference to the spotlight being played on the band from the lighting tower in the audience, which was about where I stood for this show , not wanting to stand in the water which pooled in the front of the stage. 
.


 

     At the beginning of the tape after Rockette  Morton's bass solo, there is some wierd wordplay on The Mascara Snake. Firstly Rockette, remarks- "'The Mascara Snake""and then during a pause in the solo Beefheart says""And this is the Mascara Fake " Rockette then plays his ass off some more ,pauses and then he says"-"and this is the Mascara for gods sake"The solo finally finishes and then Don says " and this is the Mascara ...."to much laughter from band and crowd alike .


**** "Did you see the Collie "is correct, not Comet as I thought -Chris Jones writes
Re Beefheart at Bickershaw - have consulted with a friend and Beefheart definitely said "You see the collie" Not "you see the Comet". He was referring to a dog that got on to the stage.

This is what my mate Ray (aka Gino) says about it . . .

Beefheart certainly did introduce the collie since this dog wandered on stage just a moment after Don introduced the Magic Band and called out to the Spotlight Kid on spotlight. If you were in the crowd at the back the dog would probably have gone unseen and the aptness of the Donís quip would have been lost.

This from Chris Jones transcribed from an alternative audience tape to the Grow Fins version

"Why don't you turn off the monitors, we'll do this next composition without the monitors. ??? we don't need the monitors to play. Doh?, oh it's not the monitor. Now everybody's going to know we're human beings. No, I'm just kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding."
He then mutters something indiscernible and the band laugh.
"If I had an electric light on right now, I wouldn't take it out for nothing."
"Sorry."
"All right, here we go, ah. Zoot Horn Rollo on guitar. A composition, a composition Peon from the album Lick My Decals Off Baby. Rockette Morton on bass this time. Thank you, thank you for waiting"

Highlights.

  Just about everything really , as mentioned before , Rockette Morton's entrance was pretty much standard fare in the shows I saw in 1972 but it was one of the most impressive ways to start a show I've ever seen. "When it blows its stacks" and" Booglarize you" are so heavy that its a wonder the band didn't collapse the stage . "Click clack" is wild. " Alice in Blunderland" is stunning, Eel really turning on the guitarwork , which is teeth grindingly good.Likewise the work in "Human gets me blues" is totally demented.Beef picks up his soprano sax during "Steal softly" and rips forth a goodly spew of screeching and a nice little unaccompanied solo which then seagues through into "Golden Birdies," which is pretty much immaculate. "Spitball Scalped  A Baby " has a short drum intro and then its the soprano again , about halfway through this the Cap'n says forcefully " leave that alone man, leave those things alone. ".

    I have no idea what he is referring to , although it could quite possibly have been some audience member fiddling with something onstage as by that time the security all had split, as the organizers made the mistake of either paying them for the weekends work or not being able to pay the security at all. Whatever, they all left, so the festival was free from about Saturday onwards.This meant that by Sunday half the local village had joined the crowd, so that during the Dead's set there were old ladies and grizzled miners dancing with the hippies in the mud to the strains of "Casey Jones." .

This new photo of the Magic Band at Bickershaw courtesy of Jules

There are some great photos of this show on Detlef Jurgens excellent Captain Beefheart Timeline site
More Beef concerts? go here to Electricity
 

The Bickershaw Menu

If you have any info regarding the festival please get in touch Contact email

Other Bickershaw links.
 
  • The Bickershaw diaries-

    Mike Plumbleys saga at Bickershaw, with more photos and extensive first hand observations of his time at the festival. 

  • Repfoto- massive collection of commercially available photos of Bickershaw for sale and view

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