« Back to Top Level | Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - New Victoria Theatre, London (1975)

Track listing:
  1. Moonlight On Vermont 3:55
  2. Band Intro 0:46
  3. Abba Zaba 4:24
  4. Orange Claw Hammer 4:53
  5. Dali's Car 1:24
  6. When It Blows Its Stacks 3:42
  7. My Human Gets Me Blues 2:58
  8. Alice In Blunderland 4:14
  9. Natchez Burning 6:02
  10. Beatle Bones 'n' Smokin' Stones 4:05
  11. Drumbo's Tap Dance/Improvisation 6:06
  12. Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead 3:05
  13. Electricity 3:58
  14. Golden Birdies 1:09
  15. Big Eyed Beans From Venus 4:49

Notes

Audience

Quality: 7/10

Captain Beefheart/Don Van Vliet: vocals, saxophone, harmonica
Drumbo/John French: drums, percussion, guitar (on: Dali's Car)
Bruce 'Fossil' Fowler: air-bass, trombone
Winged Eel Fingerling/Elliot Ingber: guitar, slide guitar
Feeler's Reedo/Walla Walla/Denny Walley: guitar, slide guitar

Quiet, mild mannered, and sensitive he may be, but Don Van Vliet is also the Spotlight Kid and with Drumbo and Winged Eel Fingerling he beamed down to London to save us. ... Clad in white, confident to the point of arrogance, the Captain stalked, growled and purred across the stage in his finest voice, laying down that old time, Vermont Moonlight religion like we haven't heard it in years - waving, gesticulating and haranguing the crowd, foot up on the monitor speakers, eyes gleaming like an astral politician's.

The audience of a couple of thousand mere earthlings were transfixed, mesmerized by the envoys from a distant galaxy, with Beefheart in complete and absolute control.

With a real magic band behind him Beefheart put paid to the ugly rumours that he'd gone soft and sentimental, as Winged Eel Fingerling and slide guitar man Denny Wally put real iron back into the Beefheart stage show. Goodbye to the anaemic touring outfit of 1974, and farewell to the hotchpotch band of gypsies we saw at Knebworth in the summer. This one was tight, well rehearsed and, above all, determined to make the songs their own. No more experimentation with Zoot Horn soundalikes for the good Captain. At last he is again interpreting his material according to the capabilities and the styles of each individual in the Magic Band and the music was simply astounding. Moonlight On Vermont, My Human Gets Me Blues, Orange Claw Hammer, Beatle Bones and Smokin' Stones, Electricity, and Abba Zaba - the pearls of wisdom dropped from the Captain's lips in an eerie cavalcade of colour, rhythm and that Beefheart 'tincan' sound. Alice In Blunderland, with Bruce 'Fossil’ Fowler's pumping air-bass, was dark and emotional, a fine foil to a country flavoured song from the new album which seemed to be all about a peanut well somewhere in Texas.

And then Denny Walley played that long leading note and let it float, the New Victoria Theatre beamed together, and we were sucked closer and closer to the stage, helpless like moths around an electric light. A crazy little thing, all of sixteen years, climbed up there and embraced him ... and then the Spotlight Kid was gone.

We clapped, and the houselights came up. We clapped and the curtain came down. We clapped some more and the safety curtain came down ... but the Captain did not reappear.

We missed the last bus home and had to walk.

(Chas De Whalley: Captain Beefheart, New Victoria. Sounds. November 22, 1975)