JIM MARTIN's last live show with FAITH NO MORE. Phoenix Festival 1993

On July 17th 1993 Faith No More headlined the first ever Phoenix Festival in Stratford, UK. It would be their last show on the Angel Dust tour and their final live performance with Jim Martin. 
Even though the band would not announce their split with the guitarist for another five months in an article Kerrang! from July 17th, Bill Gould reports that, "I don't think he [Jim] has any idea what we're doing; I don't think he understands our music at all."...... Read the full article. 
The tensions between Jim and the other four members had escalated, since the writing and recording of Angel Dust in late 1991, to the point where animosity was obvious onstage. This perhaps also made playing live an unpleasant chore for the Bill, Roddy Bottum, Mike Bordin and particularly Mike Patton. 
It is no doubt why reviews for the Phoenix festival set were poor. It has to be said that fans who attended the festival do not agree with journalists and report that it was a fantastic show. 



Kerrang!, Issue 454 
Paul Rees

FAITH NO MORE have always inhabited a strange world. 
Tonight, it became a nightmare. Everyone is tired of hearing their back-biting, self-loathing, antihero tales of personal conflict and post-fame sickness. It could have been a big, bad joke, except Jim Martin is standing miles away from the others, playing his ugly Heavy Metal guitar to himself. Mike Patton takes the piss out of Jim whenever there's a lull. Then again, Mike Patton takes the piss out of everyone who's paid to see his don't-give-a-shit performance. Yeah, it's too big, too sick and too ugly. 
Sure, the aerobics stunt at the start still raises a smile, Roddy Bottum's baroque keyboards are still wonderful, and so many of their songs still stand out like beacons,but the urgency, energy and desire has gone. 
Blame Patton. At Phoenix, the brat-turned-frontman is an arsehole. 
"Oh, you silly people," he gasps as people pick up the refrain to 'Mid-Life Crisis' and sing. Oh, you silly, stupid, arrogant little oik - they've forked out fifty quid, stood for eight hours, ate crap food and used toilets like sewers just to see you give 'em a little bit of entertainment, a little bit of attention. And you don't wanna sing 'Falling To Pieces', you ain't got the time to put anything into "Zombie Eaters', you only bark and groan and whine and act out some white trash fantasy. F**k you, and f**k your played-out games. 
Patton and the miserable, isolated Martin aside, Faith No More occasionally blow a storm in a teacup. 'R.V.' is wickedly accurate, 'Small Victory' pulls glistening melodies out of the hat, 'Be Aggressive' is hilariously off-centre, 'We Care A Lot' pumps and bruises. Only some of them don't care a lot. Some of them don't care at all. 
Split up, get a new guitarist or a new singer, cut the shit. Now, it's insincere, worn out, stupid, fake, dull, worthless. Now, it's not funny.