meccajay Posted June 5, 2004 Share Posted June 5, 2004 George Clinton & Parliament Funkadelic at Centenial Park **Long winded review** What A Great Show! He's baaaaaaack!!! Bernie Worrell played the show, and even opened the show with a classical piece featuring a beautiful female on violin...and some earth shattering moog bass passages...amazing!! Haven't caught P-Funk in several years, but someway, somehow...they're clean now. At least they appear to be. Gary, George and Bernie seem coherant, energetic, and sober! Gary even has a belly now, quite the opposite of his "skeleton on stage" look of many years! Surpizingly there were no horns, and they were never missed. A trumpet & sax player did come out and played for 2 songs, but that was about it. The band is still massive, but the main difference is not only is there the backline of guys you may remember from days of glory, Michael Hampton, Blackbyrd, P-Nut, Gary Shider, Bernie etc. Now, there's also a front line of young kids! There were 3 new singers who were in there 20's, 2 fine ass ladies who looked like 6ft supermodels, and just when you thought they were merely image fluff, George featured them on some solo's and they really can saaaang! There's a new front guy who shared some lead voc with Gary. and a young drummer. Everyone onstage was capable of keeping up with the vets, and the vets were in rare form! Back to the Violinist.. 1st of all, she was georgeous, a mixed Asian beauty.. especially in her tight 2 piece dress w/ the six pack exposed, so everytime she came onstage the crowd went crazy. Main thing though...girl could play! I mean she could play some violin! Her 2 featured peices- were the intro with Bernie and a call and response Rock solo feat. Blackbyrd on lead guitar!! If you can hold your own with Blackbyrd & Bernie...then you can freakin play! Speaking of Bernie... His seat-up was a Mini moog on top, nord lead underneath that, a Triton for piano and organs, and something on the side I couldn't see... Nothing unusual in the equipment realm, but last night was the 1st night Ive ever heard Bernie actually play synth bass on Flashlight! Some nasty, nasty stuff going on here folks. Bernie maybe older than George, or maybe he just looks it, but the man is a f**kin' WIZARD!!! He did take a lot of breaks and played in maybe 45% of a 2-1/2 hour show. The second keyboardist was pretty standard but effective. George Clinton looked fresher than Ive seen him look in 10 years. Apparantly the little crack-bust months ago has had some rehab time connected to it....Maybe so, maybe not, but the man was energetic, coherant, and youthful! The multitude of college age kids had a ball chanting everything George could throw at them... For some the 18 year old girl behind me was screaming.."I love you George...I love you!!!" over and over again all night. She was stone sober too. It amazed me how her and her friends were just in such awe of music they were too young to hear when it came out. They obviously knew Flashlight and Freak Of The Week, but when they band would strike up "Cosmic Slop" "Funkentelechy" or "Get Up For The Downstroke" they seemed to be willing and eager to learn the words on the spot! Great night! Not to mention The Wailers opened the show, and were great cool fun! The show ended in typical form when P-Funk gets started late....THEY PULLED THE PLUG!! Centenial Park is the former Olympic park from '96, now there are not only offices, but hotels and condos surrounding it, so you kinda knew that would happen.. Of course George countered that by having the crowd chant lyrics to the most popular rap songs with the drummer for 10 minutes after they got "browned out".. All in all, one of my top 3 P-Funk experiences of all time!!! TROLL . . . ish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Byrdman Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 That is great news. Saw them a couple of years ago and found the whole thing very sad. In a nutshell, they sucked. Expect they will come through Portland again soonish - have to go and see them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
konaboy Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 Thanks for the review. Cool, I'll be checking them out in Stockholm next month. hang out with me at woody piano shack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superbobus Posted June 6, 2004 Share Posted June 6, 2004 Wow, I just heard they are in Paradiso, Amsterdam this summer. Gotta go there! http://www.bobwijnen.nl Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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