Previously unseen footage of the legendary Captain Beefheart performing in Paris has been posted online.
The footage, which was shot at the famed Bataclan nightclub on April 15, 1972, on the European leg of Beefheart's Spotlight Kid tour, was originally filmed for the French TV show POP2.
Although a version of Click Clack was broadcast on POP2 and audio of the complete, seven-song set has circulated among collectors, no other footage from the show was known to exist. However, the French Radio and TV archive INA (Institut National de L'audiovisuel) has now published a version of Abba Zaba filmed at the same show.
The other songs performed at the Bataclan were Hair Pie Bake III, Alice in Blunderland, My Human Gets Me Blues, I'm Gonna Booglarize You Baby and Golden Birdies.
"My first date is going to be in Egypt," Beefheart told the NME ahead of the tour. "I'm gonna have a belly dancer, a glass blower and a ballerina at the Albert Hall.
"I have red silk suits from China I wear on stage. I like to wear silk. I have silk suits, silk shirts, silk socks. Air, you know. I've done a song for my next album Brown Star called Shiny Around The Edges With A Breathing Top. It's a beautiful song, it's like a cheer. It's a good cheer though, not a bad cheer. You'll like this next album."
Other acts to have appeared on POP2, which was presented by Patrice Blanc-Francard and ran for 28 episodes between 1970 and 1973, included The Moody Blues, Grateful Dead, The Who, Jethro Tull, Gong, Frank Zappa, Soft Machine, Alice Cooper, Mott The Hopple and – perhaps most famously – Genesis, whose Bataclan performance was widely circulated recently after the original footage was rescanned in 4K.
