Jules Verne afficianados check those date packs. It is 1980 and not 1970 isn't it? For at the bar of Guildford Students Refectory the 'Art School Dance Goes On Forever'. An Antennae Jimmy Semens lookalike is beaming dressed in a cardboard box topped by a basketball cap straight off Trout Mask Replica's cover. Back at the radar station the Comsat Angels played off my wavelength. White dopes on punk.
The long wait for the Captain at Bristol was not repeated tonight. He can be heard reciting Ape's Ma from Shiney Beast. It will take a few moments to realise that it is merely the recorded version. Temporary disappointment is forgotton by the sight of Eric Drew Feldman who is plugging in a bass guitar into an amp behind his arsenal of keyboards. He moves centre stage to pick out a familiar bass solo. It is Rockette Morton's famous opener, Rank and Rambuctious.
Feldman attempts to shuffle to the awkward beat but Morton's panther-like lunacy alludes his podgy frame. The solo is but a shadow of the originals power. A small beef wiped away by the powerhouse majesty of the set that follows. Don Van Vliet and the rest of the Magic Band have arrived on stage to mass applause.
The Captain removes a smoke grey jacket and a red scarf whilst mumbling about "Getting rid of the business procedures". He keeps his Raymond Chandler hat firmly on whilst the band lock into "Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man". The band sound like they were weaned on it. The Captain coils his familiar Howlin' Wolf 'moanin' at midnite' snarl around the song.
During the solos, which snake around driven by locomotive force, the Captain proclaims pride in his new Magic Band. He has taken off his hat to catch the imaginery bees that are stinging from Jeff Morris Tepper's blistering guitar work. The hat used to fan the flames of Richard 'Midnite Hat Size' Snyder's war dance and finally smashed down on Robert Arthur William's crashing top cymbal. Beaming with pride Don Van Vliet announces them as his "Best batch yet". Fans of the original Magic Band that blew a few fuses back in the seventies may disagree. On tonight's showing, however, the contest is going to be close.
The Magic Band combine vaudeville visuals with dynamite playing. They perform Captain Beefheart's brand of avant garde electric rhythm and blues with fire and passion by the cartload. This is no re-working of past glories. Tepper's guitar work shines like a 'Beacon from Mars'. Williams commands every angle of the beat, Drew Feldman's keyboards add a new dimension to that grating electric rhythm so brilliantly stoked by Snyder's guitar this time.
Tepper is dressed in a long trench coat, Feldman in a red fireman's helmet and Snyder wears a red jump suit topped by a bowler hat. Snappy dressers or what? To the offbeat syncopation Snyder is dancing like an indian around a totem pole. A dance that suddenly jerks into a clockwork mouse impression while he never misses a beat. The tunes vary from the earlier Bristol performance. More material from both Shiny Beast and Doc At The Radar Station this time. The set, however, still follows the same format.
Midway through Gerry Lucas comes onstage to perform "Flavour Bud Living". It is an intricate guitar piece with shades of the legendary "Peon". Full of jagged warmth. He remains with the band for "Blue Million Miles" which is followed by a Jeff Morris Tepper solo performance. Tepper delivers "One Red Rose That I Mean" This is no shadow of Bill Harkleroad or Zoot Horn Rollo's original. Tepper does not deserve the obscurity that Bill Harkleroad seems to have faded into.
The music stops for some Beefheartian wit and poetry when Gerry Lucas returns to read "Brown Star", an outtake from the Clear Spot album. He delivers it as an undergraduate might Dylan Thomas. The delivery is bland. "He says I'm a poet," mumbles Don Van Vliet like a painter temporarily relieved of his brushes.
The set picks up steam again with the Captain rapping to the audience between songs about the echo plaguing some of his vocals and that of Snyder's guitar. His main targets are his new President and our own 'darling' from number ten.
"Reagan and Thatcher dancing the napalm waltz, they're too much for my mirror, man they're too much for my world," snaps Beefheart, paraphrasing the Trout Mask Replica album. "Veteran's Day Poppy" follows a biting atttack on the Vietnam war. The juxtiposition of opium poppy's growing in Vietnamese soil with those representing the the battles of the First World War is brought home. "They won't make me cry, they can only make me high" gestates the Captain.
Many of the Captain's audience in the sixties and seventies had him pegged as being on a demented drug induced trip but Trout Mask Replica stands as a solid social comment. If you had ears you had to listen . . .
The band were to feature more material from Trout Mask Replica including my favourite "Sugar And Spikes" and the inimitable "Old Fart At Play". Then typical of Don Van Vliet's unpredictability he decides t call it a day before beginning a five song encore.
With his audience screaming for more Captain Beefheart returns carrying a stand which the roadies hang two large Chinese gongs from. The Magic Band cut into a blistering rendition of the Sheriff of Hong Kong with Don Van Vliet's venomous snarl cutting across the hall.
After this storming return the band pull solidly into Bat Chain Puller which puts the recorded version into the shadows. Suction Prints also outpaces the vinyl evidence. Judging by the Bristol set this would be the party topper but the set takes an unpredictable twist. Gerry Lucas has been fervently bopping side of stage. He now rejoins the band strapping on a Fender guitar.
The event enters a truly Vaudevillian climax. The band are dancing across stage in a co-ordinated two step for "Making Love To A Vampire With A Monkey On My Knee". If the audience contained the odd stoned acid head this would have surely flipped them.
Then it is back to the 'acorn gospel' for the closer. "Mr Brave Midnite Hat Size Snyder and Mr. Jeff Morris Tepper hold that long looming note and let it float" announces the Captain. The two guitarists hold a shimmering stereo entrance into the powerhouse majesty of Big Eyed Beans From Venus. It is the veritable showstopper.
The honours, on Venus, undoubtedly falling on the stickwork of Robert Arthur Williams. He whips his drum set in a frenzy of snare shots, cracking tom-toms and crashing cymbals. The guitars hold a buzzing elongated chord that sounds like a bee stuck in your ear.
Suddenly the lights have burst from everywhere focused on the drums. Williams whips the sound into a frenzy, throws his sticks skywards, the lights tracing their ascent. The drummer protects his head with his hands and crouches in mock fear. The sticks drop around the drums. Williams straightens and walks off. The music fades, the lights dim. The audience temporarily stunned regain their senses to erupt in mass applause. Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band are gone.
Mike Plumbley