2002 – bootlegconfessions

Femi Kuti, Hamsa Lila – Fillmore, SF, Sat., July 27

SETLISTS :

(HAMSA LILA) : Invocation, Hey Mustapha, Patchamaina, Were, Oshun, Om Tara, Illumane, Turka Lila

It had been 7 years since I’d seen Femi Kuti on that stage and I was eager again to hear the joyful sounds from the Nigerian afro-pop star and his Positive Force Band. Femi was continuing the family business, the son of the legendary Fela Kuti, and likewise had been fighting for political reforms in his native country. Nigeria was in the middle of an election that year and there would be later accusations of rigging… sounds familiar. Anyway, Femi had just put out his “Fight To Win” album which featured Mos Def and Common and had contributed his father’s song “Water No Get Enemy” to Fela’s tribute album, “Red Hot & Riot”. This music would be a definite stylistic departure from the band I saw the night before on that stage, the bombastic, post-punk Mission Of Burma from Boston.

Opening that night was Hamsa Lila, a local world music jam band who I’d seen earlier that year also opening at The Fillmore for Sound Tribe Sector Nine. They began their set very gradually and gently with an extended flute intro. They played for a full hour too, long for an opening act, but I got their whole set. It did however cut into the time of Femi’s set, so I sadly got little over an hour of it, but it came out great. Dumbe Djengue playing on bass that night is one of the best I’ve ever heard on that instrument. It was a sizable band too, having three female back up singers, a horn section, and four percussion players. Between songs, Femi talked about how his songs were political, to make the world better for the next generation, and that he had “no apologies whatsoever” for his lyrics.

He livened things up after, getting the crowd to do the usual call and response chanting and there were a lot of talented dancers on and off the stage. Halfway through the set, Femi got us all to step together, “To the right, the the left, to the right, to the right” and later dance low to the ground. There was no poster that night, but I would see Mr. Kuti again on that stage two years later, though I wouldn’t see him again until 2018 at Stern Grove. I am happy to say that the Kuti musical line is in good hands with Femi’s son, Seun Kuti, who had been performing with his dad since he was nine years old, singing and playing sax. He has since grown into an extremely talented headliner of his own who I’ve seen a couple times playing alongside his father’s old band, Egypt 80.

https://archive.org/details/femi-kuti-fillmore-72702

https://archive.org/details/hamsa-lila-fillmore-72702

Mission Of Burma, Silkworm, Mike Watt & The Secondmen – Fillmore, SF, Fri., July 26

SETLISTS :

(MIKE WATT & THE SECONDMEN) : Boilin’ Blazes, Puked To High Heaven, Burstedman, Bedtime Story, Forever… One Reporter’s Opinion, Sweet Honey Pie, The Big Bang Theory, The Red & The Black

(SILKWORM) : Treat The New Guy Right, Bourbon Beard, The Third, Contempt, (I Hope U) Don’t Survive, (unknown), The Old You, Plain, A Cockfight Of Feelings, Couldn’t You Wait?, LR72, The Brain, Is She A Sign, Severance Pay, Slave Wages

(MISSION OF BURMA) : Red, Peking Spring, Dumbells, (unknown), Max Ernst, Secrets, Dirt, This Is Not A Photograph, Forget, Mica, The Enthusiast, Einstein’s Day, That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate, The Setup, Fame & Fortune, That’s When I Reach For My Revolver, Dead Pool, The Ballad Of Johnny Burma, Class War, (encore), Fun World

I know it might sound cliched and reductive, but as time went on, I discovered that the more I knew about music, the more I realized that I didn’t know. Though I had been educated by this time by hundreds of shows, I was barely scratching the surface of the deep well that the popular music of my time had nourished itself on from the past. That being said, it was yet forgivable that I was unfamiliar with the works of Mission Of Burma at the time, especially since they had disbanded in 1983, when I was a wee lad of 11 years old. Yes, after 19 long years, this post-punk band from Boston got back together for a reunion tour and their stop at The Fillmore would obviously be the first time back in San Francisco since then. Like I said, I knew nothing of them before, though I was familiar with their song, “That’s When I Reach For My Revolver”, which had been covered by Moby and the Foo Fighters before. I had been of course oblivious to its origin. But with this show, their return to The Fillmore in 2004, and my research for this entry, I have established a foothold with them.

Another reason I knew little about Mission Of Burma before is that prior to their disbanding, they were only together for a short time, just four years, and had in that brief period only released 2 singles, an EP, and an LP called “Vs”. Their singer and guitarist, Roger Miller, originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan, where my wife grew up, had studied music composition at U of M before emigrating to Boston and originally formed the band as a a trio. Incidentally, Michigan just won the NCAA Basketball Championship just before I wrote this. Go Blue! Anyway, they then added Martin Swope to be their audio engineer who added effects and tape loops to their songs, creating a sound that was truly original. The notoriously temperamental frontman of The Fall, Mark E. Smith, once said that Mission Of Burma was the only band he could tolerate. I recently asked my friend and mentor Frank Gallagher, a veteran soundman who had worked with many of the bands on the east coast back in those days like The Ramones and the Talking Heads, if he ever did any work with them. He said no, but he believed he once “made them lunch” at Irving Plaza.

Like many musicians broaching a new musical style, Mission Of Burma’s shows were hit and miss and they had difficulties on the road. In fact, at their final show in 1983 on Staten Island, Public Image, Ltd. refused to let them use their PA and rushed them off the stage when they were done, a truly unsanctimonious end to their short tenure as a band. But the ear splitting volume at which they played soon took its toll on Roger as well who developed a serious case of tinnitus and the members moved on to other projects. Roger founded the much quieter band, Birdsongs Of The Mesozoic and drummer Peter Prescott joined the Volcano Suns. But the legacy of their music which influenced many notable artists like Sonic Youth and R.E.M. and the reissues of their recordings lit the spark that grew into the fire underneath the former members to reunite. First, there were only two gigs, one in New York City and the other in Boston, but they both sold out and the response was so positive, that they added another New York City gig and then later organized this tour.

One artist on the bill I was quite familiar with though was Mr. Mike Watt, the venerable bass player of The Minutemen and Firehose, who I had seen on several occasions before this show. He had been out of commission since 2000, recovering from an infection that he contracted in his perineum. For those who don’t know what a perineum is, let’s just say it’s a place you don’t want to have an infection and leave it at that. But Mike was back and had a new band he playfully called The Secondmen and had a bunch of new songs at the ready that he would eventually release two years later on “The Secondman’s Middle Stand” album. He would in fact perform that album’s first three songs in order at the beginning of his set. The new stuff was sophisticated and I had never heard Mike perform alongside a keyboard player before this. They dusted off a golden oldie from The Minutemen called “Forever… One Reporter’s Opinion” and did a couple unexpected covers, “Bedtime” by Madonna and “The Red & Black” a real oldie from Blue Oyster Cult. It was gratifying to see Mike back on stage again and on the mend with his joyful grin, playing his heart out as always.

Next up was Silkworm, a band from Seattle by way of Missoula, Montana. They had been together since the late 80’s, though I hadn’t heard them before, and had just released their 8th album, “Italian Platinum”, produced by grunge pioneer Steve Albini. They kind of reminded me of Pavement and I liked them. The members cracked jokes between songs, one of them saying “I’m too depressed to do the next song” before they did “Is She A Sign”. One of them thought their set was over and started to leave the stage before their last song when another harkened him back joking, “No, you’re in prison! You have to stay. Have you ever seen such cowardice? This man is a worm!” This was be the only time I’d see Silkworm though, since they disbanded only three years later after their drummer Michael Dahlquist was tragically killed in a car accident. They did have a brief reunion in 2024 for a show at Steve Albini’s memorial and then toured the following year.

Mission Of Burma maintained their reputation of being an extremely loud band, but Roger was prepared this time, donning a pair of earphone cans normally used by folks at a rifle range. Martin Swope wasn’t along for the tour this time, but was replaced by Bob Weston, the bass player of Shellac, who handled the duties of tape manipulation and live engineering. Roger looked happy, saying between songs, “Stick around! We’ll play four hours at least… Believe me, I’m lying”. He kept the gallows humor flowing, as he described the song “The Enthusiast” saying it was about when you “like something so much that it makes you die” and introduced another one, “Keeping to our tradition, we’re going to do something really depressing”. Considering the historic nature of this reunion tour, I was relieved that The Fillmore had a poster at the end of the show. I would return the following night to see a very different act altogether, Femi Kuti from Nigeria, on that same stage.