Leicester University, Leicester .UK. 5/1/73

Art Tripp ( Ed Marimba)- Drums

Electricity; Peon; Sugar Mama/King Bee

    This consisted of a bunch of competent, but unsympathetic musicians hired to promote the worst Beef album ever, " Unconditionally Guaranteed". Its uninspired stuff,   just ordinary , whereas almost everything else that Don recorded was either inspired or just plain brilliant. Whether the cap'n was trying to court commercial success or not , it did not work .Most of the old fans hated the new lineup and there were not too many new fans because even with a pretty commercial front Beefheart was still too weird for the average punter out there in dweeb land. 
 

However ,that debacle was still to come .At this point in time the Magic Band were held in very high esteem by both press and by fans like myself who would do anything to attend a concert.       As soon as we heard of this show I purchased tickets .I went along with my good friends Dave Kinghorn and Andy, ( the time Tortoise ) Hope and we had a ball. Dave was a gangling frizzy haired nutcase who had a pechant for doing naughty things to Henry Moore sculptures. ( top.)        Andy was, at the time ,probably the funniest person in the world and now runs the wonderful Green Roadshow circus.(middle)      Whereas by contrast I was a toothy ,gangly frizzy haired nutcase who preferred leaping over Welsh watercourses-( bottom ).       I have very sweet memories of this particular show,perhaps not the best 73 show ever, but still full of musical treasures. It was a gig that had not been advertised very well , so in consequence there might have only been a hundred people there at the most. ( contrasted with a full Leicester De Montford Hall the year before -which was probably a 500 seater at least. ). There was plenty of room for dancing and we made the most of it. We danced all the way through , right down the front . Did we dance! the music just forced one to do so.Number's like King Bee stuff are boogie fodder , WE HAD NO CHOICE, WE HAD TO DANCE.     The Cap'n was there in his leather jacket and headband , with Ray Estrada , moustachioed as usual , skulking up the back , laying down some great bass lines . The usual duo of Rockette Morton and Zoot Horn Rollo were mashing it up furiously. Gone was Winged Eel Fingerling. in his place Alex "Pajama" St Clair was there on guitar , just as good musically, although not so visually startling as the Eel. In fact, a recent photo I saw of Alex at Leicester ( which I hope to get permission to use eventually on this page ) shows his appearance to be startlingly normal. Short haired , ( apparently  he had been playing in a Los Angeles lounge bar previous to this stint with the Capn') and fairly conventionallly attired, he still managed to do some one legged duck walking on occcasions.      The show starts as usual with Rockettes thunderous bass guitar intro , which mutates into the bass line intro from  "When It Blows its Stacks," - stops for unknown reasons I cannot remember -  and then waltzes crazily into the magnificent madness of Hair Bake Pie, with some wild slide guitar.

      Theres the Monacled Ed Marimba with his see through drumkit, seemingly everywhere at once, cooking up a manic beat that is totally propulsive , I love the portions of this number where the percussion comes to the fore, it comes through really well on this audience tape, which is one of the better efforts from this era. Theres nice separation , and after the muddy bass in the opening intro the bass can now be heard cleanly and its a good mix. By now the band has moved into Sue Egypt , which builds into a nice groove but is short lived. The first traces of the Cap'ns formidable mouth harp are heard , but only briefly, as the song peters out . Theres silence for some seconds, but then , yes its, -MIRROR MAN- I'm sure here I can hear myself yelping in the background when the first distinctive notes are heard , but possibly this is just wishful thinking on my part.

     Whatever,we are all boogieing frantically by this time as the band just throws itself into the opening portions of the song. As usual, this is a highlight of the show, its one of my fave songs by ANYONE ,not just the Cap'n, to me this IS what the blues should be. We get a really big dose of Don's harp playing ,and even though this version is not as good as the one off the eponymously named official release "Mirror Man " , (but then what is ?), it is very tasty and finishes with some delightfully soulful blues harp which has the crowd hollering and yelling  and is giving me shivers up my spine as I type this. Don then goes into some great vocal improvisation, yelling  ' Can you feel it "  and getting much crowd response.He then proceeds to give one of the best  examples of weird blues scat singing I've heard, ending in him rumbling mightily,accompanied by guitar strangeness. The last moan then becomes the first words of  'Low Y Yo Stuff" .Ah , this is such a great song, definitely  one of my favourites from "Clear Spot", but this is a  relatively short version , with no jams. The tape pauses after this and then we are into 'Crazy Little Thing", which has a nicely different delivery of " my only question is ,how old can you be ".

       Another pause, this time quite lengthy , with quite a deal of crowd laughter , noise and some slow clapping, and then applause.  I don't remember what was going on here.Theres a tape cut and the next thing we hear is Don saying " Bass "- and then "Sugar and Spikes" , so theres probably the sifter solo missing for some reason ( and what the hell is a Sifter solo anyway ?, someone , please explain ? )

      Sugar N Spikes is appropriately spikey and heavy, with great guitar , especially slide ( Zoot or Alex ? ) and then the tape stops during the applause ( trying to save tape , or editing when making copies ? )
     I'm gonna Booglarise Yah " is next with Don rumbling beautifully -theres a short tape cut, not too distracting - but overall this is a powerful version which has nice leads and a very propulsive beat,  Marimba really driving the band along and Don shouting " can you feel it " repeatedly . The band slows for the " tush, tush", portion of the rap and then builds again whilst Don improvises , getting  to where he speaks to the crowd, asking us " can you feel it " to audience cheers and then " this house is the most " ,whilst the band vamps quietly behind him . Don then says "Got the beat from the drum ", got the beat from the drum " and the song  stops suddenly. 

      Electricity is phenomenal, with Dons voice reaching awesome heights of power and the guitarwork really shredding the joint apart. The opening vocal is just huge ,the jamming goes on for a goodly till Don joins in on mouth harp and the place is really boogieing fit to bust ,then the band slows and Don gets into his second vocal break repeating " Shout the truth " and getting a good response from the audience, he then goes right out there with some awesomely long " Shout it outs " which are really powerful  and astonishes the audience into silence. 

      Peon seems pretty normal after that , but is well played as usual . Then its into the final numbers on the tape,  Sugar Mama & King Bee. I felt that this was the perfect medley for Don to do, as he is steeped in the blues and in many ways he is the natural successor to great blues shouters such as Howlin' Wolf. This version rocks on strong, then pulls right down to be REALLY QUIET, with the audience clapping along softly , punctuated by various guitar squeaks and deep blues vocalisations from Don, then in comes the slide, thunderous bass and Dons hollering "Sugar mama , where do you get your sugar from " until the band takes it way down again and Don allows the number to go out in a long ,slow fade. 

     Thats it as far as the tape goes, I know there was a furious Big Eyed Beans at the end of the show. I wish the whole show had been preserved , although I find it hard to believe that the tapers would not have come prepared to tape the whole thing.Who knows, it may still be out there somewhere.
 

     Other shows of this era feature a set list such as this and its safe to assume that most of these numbers were played at Leicester
 

Hair Pie Bake III/Suction Prints;
Sue Egypt (instrumental);
Mirror Man;
Low Yo Yo Stuff; 
Crazy Little Thing; 
Sifter Solo; Sugar N Spikes;
I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby;
Electricity;
Peon; 
King Bee/Sugar Mama;
( my tape tragicially finishes here)

Click Clack; 
Alice in Blunderland;
Abba Zabba; 
Nowadays A Woman's Got To Hit A Man; 
Big Eyed Beans From Venus; 
Golden Birdies