"Frank in Black" live in Lisbon

Aula Magna (Lisbon, Portugal)
17 March 2001
Time: 21H00 (It wasn't so: 21H35 actually! Well, who cares?)

The concert hall  was pretty bad for a FB concert. Why? Well because it was full of people but also full of undetachable chairs! Incredible, isn´t it? We took a small MiniDisk recorder with this fancy stereo mic to record this event and while we prepared it others were shouting: "Where is my mind?"
People were getting noisy because it was getting way past nine o'clock. No big deal because beer was taking care of our bellies - Frank Black style! Yes.

Finally they showed up not really bothered about being late. We think the first tune was Calistan, we felt like "teenagers of the year"! They played basically non-stop without saying much. We remember Frank mumbling "Obrigado" (It means "Thank You"), he preferred the magestic Caesar salute with the stretched arm up and down. 

Guess what... everybody stood up for the first time with "Gouge away"; until then nobody really recognized any of the songs, unfortunately. When everybody was expecting half an hour of pixies the crowd sat down right after gouge away to catch up with a few FB solo hits. Poor Catholics, sometimes mere FB servants! A word for the excellent bassist...the most energetic of all, seemed he was playing in a "Rage Against the Machine" kind of band. 

We don't think there was a line-up for this concert because they had to meet eyes and wait for the master's whispers in order to know what to play next.

Nevertheless we had the chance to hear about 37 songs played in a loud and speedy Pixies style! (always this phantom haunting FB). Exceptions made for Llano del Rio, Dog in the sand, and a few more we don't recall. He finished with the fabulous Blast Off and jumped off the stage cheering the first row fans.

For you paranoid Pixies fans, beside gouge away he played 6 more tunes: Where is my mind, monkey is gone to heaven, Mr. Grieves, Nimrod's Son, Dancing the Manta Ray, ... .

I've taken some pictures at the concert and with him afterwards (You can find them at http://lpitta.8m.com/fb) At the end we spoke with everyone in the band and finally with the great buddha who kindly autographed our minidisks!! He found it strange and asked if we had taped the gig...we were obviously honest and he replied (laughing)"son of a bitch!"
We inquired him about Kim Deal, he said after a pause..."I haven't seen her since the last concert in 92".

By the way, amazing news: FB HAS GOT NO ROADIES! Well at least the ones that should carry all their stuff to the Bus. He did it himself and told a bunch of guys (including us) to wait "10 minutes!". We obviously did...
Look at this great picture:

The Portuguese security blokes weren't that happy about us being so near the great buddha. So what did Frank do? He just pulled everybody to a wider area and started autographing and talking with us. He was in a quite good mood specially considering 2 and a half hours of concert and about 20 minutes carrying his own shit.

We invited him to have a drink with us, but he politely excused himself saying he had to be in fucking Grenoble, France (1500 Km in two days by bus!!, poor Frank and the Catholics!)

Great Gig Frank, Thanks...You'll surely go to Heaven with or without the Catholics!

PS. By the way, the sound was really loud (to loud indeed) and the recorded sound in our minidisks was all fucked up. Bad luck!! Well at least it have a nice autograph on it! 

Tanks any way Frank.

LP(r) & VB 2001