Super Vindicators hard at work

ScottishTeeVee has once again posted a Super Rock gem, a full (maybe) Fleshtones show at Nightmoves in Glasgow, Scotland, from November 3, 1983. The Fleshtones were in Europe at the tail end of supporting Hexbreaker!, and they dip into that album as well a bag of covers. They open with "New Scene," then barrel through the Standells' "Try It," "Screamin' Skull," "Legend of a Wheelman," the Split Ends' "Rich With Nothin'," The You Know Who Group's "Roses Are Red My Love," "Shadow-line," "The World Has Changed," the Ventures' "2,000 Pound Bee," "The Dreg," "Stop Fooling Around," "Super Vindicators," Marvin Gaye's "Baby, Don't You Do It," Edwin Starr's "All Around The World," John Lee Hooker's "Burning Hell," Crazy Elephant's "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'," and the Sonics' "Boss Hoss."

The band's on hysterically good form this night: during "2,000 Pound Bee," Peter Zaremba and Gordon Spaeth engage in some sort of ritual dance involving drum sticks, before covering drummer Bill Milhizer and his kit entirely in a black drape emblazoned with a devil during "The Dreg" (Milhizer's eventually rescued by a sympathetic roadie); during "Stop Fooling Around," Zaremba knocks his organ completely off of the stage and then wears the legs of a broken stool around his neck; during an extended "Vindicators," Zaremba and Spaeth drag two floor toms onto the stage to pound, the job eventually taken over by a couple of well-oiled, enthusiastic fans who the guys have to finally drag off; an intense ten-minute "Baby, Don't You Do It" is stripped to its bones and ends with the band striking their patented Powerstance pose (originated on this very tour), while "All Around The World" is played mostly on the beery floor, where Zaremba and the band literally get the crowd down. Frustratingly, the video cuts out after "Boss Hoss" as the band starts another tune, so who knows when in the hell this show actually ended.

I love that this insanity was recorded, yet, as always, a Fleshtones show is best documented in-person and on-the-ground, where if you're standing three-deep at the back bar you may end up having the best spot of the night if only because Zaremba shows up next to you and performs a third of the show there. As it is, Zaremba's off stage plenty, his voice booking through the dark club, a reminder that a Fleshtones show is truly dimensional, untenthered to the stage itself. Enjoy some Super Rock madness at its best.