An evening with the leader GC. No not the Giro's General Classification lead but George Clinton who is probably leading his last tour given he's 80 and spends a good time of the gig sitting in a chair just in front of the drum set. Having said that he does have a lot of energy all things considered. I meet Debbie at the pub and after a swift large one we hit the Town and Country aka Forum. We catch the finale of the support act who sound pretty good and funky. Then after a while as the array of mics are set up Parliament Funkadelic take the stage and GC is on straight away and right into the high octane set. It's a great mix of stuff I know and stuff I don't which could mean that it's old or new. Or in the middle. He's put out so much stuff you could spend your listening life just with GC and his offshoots plus all the songs he's been sampled on. The crowd are up for it and dancing around to the magnificent mix of soul funk jazz rock audience participation call and respond scat by the maestro sax / guitarist and, well, everything inbetween. If anything can wedge itself inbetween the Parliament Funkadelic's collective outpourings. There are loads on stage including a whole array of singers and each take a start turn whilst we are all continually vigorously encouraged to clap, wave our hands, wave our arms or repeat back lyrics and of course to shake our asses. Given his output and the fact that he's the most sampled musician who ever lived it's nice that George introduces a song by saying that this is a classic then they go into a high energy version of House of Pain's Jump Around. Which must be one of the few hip hop full on sampling hits that don't sample George Clinton. Debbie's 36 hours awake kicks in and she leaves with me feeling very guilty that I don't go home with her but she insists I stay and catch what may be the last of George live and direct. It's worth it. The finale goes on a while as everyone on stage is introduced which takes a while. The woman begging outside the tube in the rain who I stop to give money to says I'm the first of all the people streaming past to stop and chat and give her money. One Nation Under a Groove?
Here's the Guardian review. I wrote mine first and think it's better. And they only gave the gig 4 stars. Criminal.
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/may/24/george-clinton-parliament-funkadelic-review-fabulous-fusions-on-farewell-tour
 |
| How many singers does a band need? |
 |
| N+1 if you're Parliament Funkadelic (note GC sat down) |
 |
| The most sampled man in history seems slightly surprised that he's playing someone else's song |
 |
| I didn't mention the dancers. OMG. |
No comments:
Post a Comment