(thing) by DyRE Tue Aug 21 2001 at 9:40:38

Title of Oingo Boingo's final concert, the double album, and dual VHS cassette release of the concert. The concert took place on 31 October, 1995 (Halloween has always been big with Oingo Boingo and its fans, many of which attended the concert in costume) at the Universal Amphitheatre in Universal City, California. The recordings were released in 1996 on A&M Records. In addition to the concert, the video release also contained documentary and backstage footage and the music videos for "Little Girls" and "Insanity." Since VHS tape can hold more than CDs, the Farewell video also contains two more songs (see track list below) and a brief introductory speech by the band's singer/songwriter Danny Elfman before welcoming the horn section back to Oingo Boingo prior to the start of the 5th song. Neither release includes a recording of it but the band performed "Goodbye Goodbye" as an encore. All the songs except "I Am The Walrus" (written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney back when they were Beatles) were written by Danny Elfman.

The packaging for both contains plenty of photographs from the concert. In addition, the album release contains the following message from Danny Elfman: "Quite simply...the time was right. After 17 years together, it finally occurred to me that we had survived about 16 years longer than I had expected...pretty good by any standards I think. It's been good, crazy times, and I'm always amazed how loyal our fans have consistently been, but I think it's better to let things go before they turn sour. Also, scientifically speaking, modern research has recently proven that after a band has been together longer than a decade, the risk of the dinosaur factor kicking in increases exponentially each year thereafter. In short, it's been fun. Adios Amigos" When Farewell was released, the band gathered at a record store in Los Angeles to autograph copies. One (possibly both) of the 30 foot tall dancing skeletons that appeared on stage during the concert was also given away in a contest.

Track list:
(contents not in bold are on the VHS only)

    tape/disc one:
  1. Documentary & Retrospective Footage (23:00)
  2. Insanity (7:37)
  3. Little Girls (3:55)
  4. Cinderella Undercover (4:46)
  5. Controller (2:50)
  6. Burn Me Up (2:53)
  7. Insects (3:09)
  8. No One Lives Forever (4:05)
  9. Hey! (7:47)
  10. Reptiles and Samurai (5:41)
  11. Water (4:04)
  12. I Am The Walrus/Tender Lumplings (4:03)
  13. Nothing To Fear (But Fear Itself)
  14. Piggies (6:47)
  15. We Close Our Eyes (4:12)
  16. Mary (6:15)
  17. Can't See (Useless) (4:28)
    tape/disc two:
  1. Helpless (3:48)
  2. I'm So Bad (3:33)
  3. Change (8:50)
  4. Just Another Day
  5. Stay (3:39)
  6. Who Do You Want To Be (2:59)
  7. On The Outside (3:36)
  8. Wild Sex (In The Working Class) (4:36)
  9. Dead Man's Party (6:12)
  10. Nasty Habits (5:30)
  11. Clowns of Death (6:50)
  12. Ain't This The Life (3:17)
  13. Whole Day Off (4:28)
  14. Grey Matter (6:19)
  15. No Spill Blood (5:23)
  16. Only A Lad (4:24)
  17. Documentary & Retrospective Footage (8:00)
  18. Little Girls - The Video
  19. Insanity - The Video

The performers:

Produced by: Danny Elfman, Steve Bartek, John Avila
Total running time (tape one): 101:55
Total running time (tape two): 96:42
Total running time (VHS version): 3:18:37

I like it! 2 C!s