All Stars? All stars? Where's Bootsy Collins? Where's Bernie Worrell? If Bunny Wailer lead the Wailers that are currently touring they would be the equivalent of the P-Funk All Stars, lead by George Clinton, I saw Wedneday night at BB King's.
Look, it is always gonna be a pleasure to see George Clinton, a lot less gray and A LOT LESS FLAMBOYANT at 70 years old, and you know P-Punk brought the funk, But it took them forever to start cooking and before then they reminded me of the family Stone llast time I saw Sly. A bunch of pretty good pros, bringing it, but without that certain je ne sais quoi. The first song, a 25 minute workout segueing from "I Betcha He Never Knew My Love" to a shout out "Look Out Here I come" was good but not otherworldly. It reminded me of jam bands like Phish, maybe a little too smart for its own good. The stage was filled to overflowing and voices sang from one end of the stage to the other (though not in harmony) while an extended guitar lick swayed between songs and they returned to themes long after you thought they were over. . It is all funk vamping with the instruments boiled down to bass, guitar, drums and keyboards: the improvising all seemed to come from the voices, which was weird indeed.
Sure it was impressive but it wasn't world beating impressive. I heard better guitar playing with Jefferson Starship, better bass with Grand Graham Central, and better funk from Funkadelic in their prime, for one.
An hour in and the magic that is Funkadelic becomes a series of catechisms shared with the adoring audience: "right back where I started from", 'yeah yeah yeah", "I need to dance" "free your ass". The call and response is very powerful and the band is leading the audience, if not me, somewhere. There is something kinda missing though. An electric guitar break in the middle has Michael Hampton becoming Pink Floyd, a little later, another guy performs a jazz scat , elsewhere there is a rapper who is pretty good, it is like the band comes together and falls apart song after song, But even that isn't right, they are like movements,ants within movements: as if all the Kings Of Comedy came on stage and riffed off one another.
It takes Clinton's grand- daughter herself to get things turned around. Starting with a stripped down horn solo, a funk-jazz hybrid "Yank My Doobie" switches gear and becomes "Harder steel and still getting harder" where Clinton Junior, raps and rips her way through so many double entendres, it is hard to figure out where the entendres end and the doubles begin.
And maybe 20 minute later the entire band finds its funk in a blindingly brilliant work out for "One Nation Under A Groove"> It's been two hours and the band finally finds its swing and swings hard. The woman standing in front of me is dancing so hard she keeps on hitting me, and the bass player is taking an extended solo, slapping his bass like he is Larry Graham or something. And then I left (a work day… I regreted it)
Yup, I mentioned Sly and Graham as influences. Maybe James Brown. Maybe the Grateful Dead. Clinton is the master of ceremonies on seriously funked up shit. But he needs some better players behind him. Will I be back next time he is in town? Sure. But just for the funk of it.
Grade: B+