Yesterday afternoon I scored a pair of tickets to see George Clinton and the Parliament Funkadelic at Showbox Sodo. I was initially excited to see the P-Funk legend live in concert, but didn’t really know what to expect. I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of his music, and really hadn’t heard much except for the hits like One Nation Under a Groove, Flash Light, and Atomic Dog. What I did know was that the man is a legend and was a very influential figure in the funk movement of the 70’s.
I rolled up about 10pm, and realized he had been on stage for at least 30 minutes already. They ended up playing until midnight, so I hadn't missed much. Right away I noticed that the sound quality was extremely poor. This would mark the second show for me in a row at Showbox Sodo where the sound was off. The Down show in August sounded like shit too. I was warned that George’s voice wasn’t as strong as it once was, and that was very apparent. He relied very much on his many backup singers to fill in the gaps. The reality of the night was that George Clinton really didn’t do anything. He was at best the MC for the night as he invited a slew of vocally impressive females to take lead and sing their asses off. George would just kind of wave his hands in the air, and hid on the side of the stage at times. At one point during “Maggot Brains” he left the stage for what seemed like forever. Parliament Funkadelic even performed “One Nation Under a Groove” without him, as Garry “Diaperman” Shider took lead vocals. It was an extremely odd concert experience and not entirely enjoyable.
At first I equated this to my ignorance in the genres of Funk, R&B, and Soul because many people were having what seemed like an excellent time; clouds of weed smoke billowed in the building, and an arousing version of “Flashlight” caused a pretty descent dance party. I just thought maybe I was out of my element. This was until I read a review of the show from Johnathan Cunningham, Music Editor at the Seattle Weekly, which completely panned the show and basically read my mind with his thoughts on the performance. Check out his review of last night’s George Clinton fiasco here, as his knowledge of the genre helps paint a better picture of the travesty. I’m so thankful I didn’t spend the $40 on a ticket, because it really wasn’t worth half that. It’s too bad that I didn’t get a very good first impression from George, but I’ll give him a break, cause at 68 he’s still doing it, kinda....
0 Comments:
Post a Comment