Asbury Park NJ gig:7/26/96

[LOUSFC]

Seeing the Butthole Surfers 2 nights in a row is a rare pleasure indeed!
We
saw them again on Sat 7/27/96, at Convention Hall in Asbury Park, New
Jersey,
the most economically depressed town on the Jersey shore.

The Hall is pretty big; the floor is about the same capacity as Roseland
in
NYC, I'd guess (maybe 4000?), but wider & shorter from front to back.
Smaller
stage too. And, there are auditorium-like bleacher seats, which the
over-zealous security goons prevented people from using.

The Toadies had a packed floor, very crowded for their set. The crowd
thinned
out for the Buttholes, & continued to diminish as their set went on. It
was
again 90:00 (10:50pm - 12:20am), EXACTLY the same as the Roseland show,
same songs & same sequence (Dust Devil mid-set, TV Star as last encore).
Some
differences were in the jam segments in The Shah, and Who Was in My Room
Last Night....both Paul and Gibby doing bubbly, clattering keyboard work.
Also
Gibby intro'd that one-minute punk tune (No Problem?) with a hilarious
delayed hiccup/belching routine. Then he said "Oh, I'm sorry..." as they
exploded into the song!

It would have been just a bit anti-climactic to see the exact same show,
with
one exception. As the (rather unenthusiastic) crowd thinned out, we kept
moving closer...and closer... and closer.... and closer!! By around 2/3
into
the set, and for the entire encore set, we were no more than 10-15 feet
from
stage left, right in front of the P.A. (They were also a bit louder at
this
hall). I was leaning against the barricade that the security thugs walked
behind. It was AMAZING to see them from that range with no fear of death
or
bodily injury!! We could see Paul's totally fucked-up, uneven haircut, and
all his assorted escaped-mental patient facial expressions! Needless to
say
the strobe wall was blinding at that range....Gibby went about his
singing,
Gibbytronics, alto sax madness, and keyboard playing with casual
intensity,
smoking cigs & drinking beer, & we got a great view of King (when he
wasn't
engulfed in dry ice).

The crowd was, as noted, not all that into it except for a few
die-hards...most people who did stay seemed dumb-struck. But, troopers
always, the Butts came out & did the full encore set. Paul asked as they
came
back out "Is everything OK between us? Did we do something wrong?" We all
screamed our enthusiasm. Another great moment was during Let's Talk About
Cars...as the 2nd guitarist played the melody line, Paul was
fretting/intoning the same line in harmony with his left hand on the Les
Paul
neck, while playing chords on his keyboard with his right hand. After TV
Star, Gibby strode off in apparent annoyance....none of the usual "finale"
delay noises. I guess he was pissed at the poor turn-out for their
set...and
he has a right to be, considering the floor was packed for the Toadies.

Anyway, two great shows! Let's hope it's not another 3-4 years for a new
album/another tour.