For Your Weekend Listening Pleasure: Living Colour Plays the Arcadia in November 1990

​This one's special. I found it late last night, buried in one of the Internet's dustier corners, marked only "Living Colour - Dallas, TX - 11-27-90." It didn't say where. So I thought maybe it was that extraordinary Bronco Bowl show I reviewed for the Times Herald, drenched in sweat and knee-deep in the mosh pit. (Couldn't be helped; we were swept up in a tidal wave roaring out of Vernon Reid's amp.) But, no. That show was on March 9, 1991. Fact-checked it here, a remarkable repository for those as rock nostalgic as I. And the shows at the Cotton Bowl, opening for the Stones, were in November 1989.

So off to the dusty, leather-bound Observer archives. And there was the ad, next to a profile of Ice, Ice Baby: Living Colour for two nights at the Arcadia Theatre, which we watched burn to the ground five years ago.

A better-sounding boot you won't find; says the note that comes with, the soundboard tape was a gift from guitarist Vernon Reid to an Italian fan, who traded it to someone who eventually shared it with the rest of the class. He (she?) continues: "Great show, they do a nice reggae intro to 'Glamour Boys' and Vernon has cool jazz runs before 'Open Letter.' "Otherwise the band kinda tears it up, as usual. Corey gets on the crowd about being a bit sleepy. Crowd is very distant on the recording, so hard to tell what's going on!"

Alas, it's just a wee bit incomplete -- no "Cult of Personality," say, which surely made the set list on this tour in support of the recently released Time's Up, which, for some reason, I was arguing with Pete just the other day holds up better than Vivid anyhow. Great Clash cover to boot. Now, who's got that Los Lobos-Steve Earle show?