1973 Captain Beefheart gig at Rainbow – Finsbury Park
Right up there with the greatest gigs I’ve ever been fortunate enough to be part of! Up there with Jimi Hendrix, Son House, Cream, Roy Harper, Led Zep and Pink Floyd. Excitement was palpable!
Quite often when your expectations are high the gig doesn’t live up to expectations. Not in this case. They blew me away.
Having seen the original band at Middle Earth in 1968, which still rates as one of the most exhilarating gigs ever, I went to the Rainbow with heart in mouth.
The Rainbow was just around the corner from where I was living so I strolled around early. The fact that it was seated was a bit of a turn off but we were near the front.
Rockette came out clutching his bass with a long coiled lead. He was wearing what looked like a space helmet. A great cheer went up! He introduced himself – ‘Hello. I’m Rockette Morton’ another great cheer. He then mumbled something about starting with a toast that went straight over my head at the time. I asked Rockette about this on the 2011 tour. He explained that it wasn’t a space helmet at all; it was a big American toaster that he’d pulled open and wore as a hat. That made the toast comment more understandable. Rockette laughingly told me that the band had flown in all wearing their stage garb (probably, given the politics of Don’s rigid leadership, the only clothes they had) and Rockette had worn the toaster helmet as they trooped past a bemused customs man.
Someone yelled out ‘What do you run on Rockette Morton’ and he proceeded to show us. Using his steely fingers to set up the incredible intricate rhythms of the instrumental that started all those 1973 gigs a very fit and wiry Rockette proceeded to pogo around the stage madly like the stage was molten lava. Those laser beans sure had energy!
The rest of the band sloped out behind him and plugged in. I can still picture the tall lanky figure of Zoot Horn Rollo, with long fair hair flowing over his skinny face and voluminous shirt, plugging in his guitar and turning the volume up. Alex Snouffer plugged in and Ed Marimba took his place behind the drums. As the crowd clapped and roared their appreciation of Rockette’s amazing efforts, the band roared in with the instrumental Suction Prints. The guitars weaved their magic as the bass and drums set up a thunderous beat. It plunged and roared through changes of rhythm and tempo as the guitars duelled. Fabulous! I knew we were in for a storming night!
Still no sign of the Captain but towards the end of Suction Prints some harmonica came in.
When the number finished there was a pause. The crowd roared its approval. Atmosphere electric. I was already zooming!
The band started up again with a familiar intro. It was loud! The sound was pounding through my body. The whole audience were melded into a single bouncing body riding those incredible vibrations. Then, impossibly, the Captain’s powerful vocal erupted over the top sending my eardrums pulsating. So loud yet clear. Coming in like a jet plane. It’s funny how your mind plays tricks with you. I would have put my house on that first song being Electricity. It wasn’t until Steve Froy gave me a bootleg of the concert many decades later that I registered that it was in fact Mirrorman.
At the time Don was standing invisibly in the wings as the band projected the force and that astounding voice bellowed over the top Miiiiirrrrrrrroooooooorrrrrrrrrr MMMiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrooooorrrrrrr!!
Then he strode out as the band launched in and he picked up the vocal. Everything impossibly went to a different level. The excitement surged. Audience and band melded, riding on waves of electricity.
After that it was one great surging blend of intricate polyrhythms, changing tempos, wailing harp, searing, stinging guitar and a driving rhythm section with Don’s voice and poetry roaring over the top. The barrage of sound was physical, the bombardment sending endorphins into overdrive. The visceral thump sending all the cells in my body throbbing in time to the driving beat. This was how rock music should be experienced – the perfect combination of mind and body – fused into one pulsing entity, carried away on a wall of sound, the poetry and dynamics of that voice blending with the complex rhythms of that primitive powerhouse. This was it!
They just kept coming- Low Yo Yo Stuff, Nowadays a Woman, Crazy Little Thing, Sugar and Spikes, Peon, Grow Fins, Abba Zabba, Electricity, Veteran’s Day Poppy, King Bee, Big Eyed Bees From Venus, Golden Birdies. The barrage was relentless! Everything just perfect, powerful, moving. The words resonating; the music brought to life by the power of performance. The whole audience caught up in the fervour of the moment.
You had to be there! The bootlegs are a weak insipid substitute compared to this. In that moment the energy was a tumbling tsunami.
This was it! This was it! Pure joy! I dissolved into the magic of the Magic Band. Nothing surpassed that. Nothing.