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Taken from The Morning Call (Jul 07, 2015)
REVIEW: George Clinton and Parliment-Funkadelic at Sands Bethlehem Event Center have lost some stank, but still bring the party
by John J. Moser
George Clinton at Sands Bethlehem Event Center (BRIAN HINELINE/Special to The Morning Call) |
Despite being recognized among the foremost innovators of funk music, George Clinton and his Parliament-Funkadelic all-stars these days don’t draw people to their concerts with precision playing.
The crowd comes for the part
It certainly was a party Sunday at Sands Bethlehem Event Center, as Clinton and his crew—there sometimes were 18 performers on stage at the same time – ran through two hours of music. The crowd of perhaps 750 danced, waved its arms and sometimes participated in the madness by singing along.
But it rarely was the tight, precision funk that first made Clinton the successor to James Brown and Sly Stone in the late 1970s and 1980s and got him and Parliament-Funkadelic inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
At times, it was a cacophony that seemed ready to unravel at any point. “One Nation Under a Groove” was chaotic; a hot mess of a song that somehow held together – barely. On ”Pole Power,” you could barely hear the female singer, let alone understand what she was singing.
Parliament-Funkadelic’s vaunted horn section was reduced to a sax and trumpet that played along with the synthesizer on “Mothership Connection,” but were pretty deep in the mix rather than the sharp clarions they were at the groups’ heyday.
Other songs stretched past 10 minutes with elongated jams. “(Not Just) Knee Deep” clocked in at 12 minutes, with a long scat-singing interlude by one of the troupe.
Another song, which Clinton introduced by saying, “And now, who would have thought? Funkadelic goes EDM,” went to 14 minutes.
It indeed, like EDM, had a thumping beat with squiggly snyth lines. But with a long sax solo that incorporated a snippet of the theme song from the 1970s television show “The Jeffersons” and a long keyboard solo that borrowed heavily from The Doors’ “Light My Fire.”
Clinton, who turns 74 in two weeks, no longer dresses in long, multi-colored dreadlocks or shoock wigs. On Sunday, he was in a hat and glasses, wearing a checkered suit, with different-patterned checkered pants. Yet he still narrated the show with his space alien shtick.
“I am not of this world,” he said. “But I have come to free your mind. And if your mind is free, your butt will follow.”
For much of the audience, that was true. But Clinton was far more reserved. Often he would stand center stage, arms spread or a hand cupping his ear. Other times he would simply sit mid-stage, as if on a throne, watching the spectacle swirl around him.
And a spectacle it was. During the night’s best song, “Flash Light,” a man – bare-chested in a white fur hat and matching white fur pants – came on stage to dance, do gymnastic moves and roll his chiseled belly.
Amid all of that, there would occasionally be some pretty good music that reminded how sharp Parliament-Funkadelic once was. When the guitar player was isolated on “(Not Just) Knee Deep,” he played a pretty good solo.
The horns on “Flash Light” were at their best, playing a long interlude. At the end of that song, Clinton was hollering the title repeatedly and the audience was having a dance party.
On “Presence of a Brain,” Clinton asked the crowd, “How many of y’all were there back in the ‘70s?” To which too many people, considering their ages, responded affirmatively.
“Back in the old days there used to be real funk,” he said. “Real stankin’ funk.”
On Sunday, it seemed much of that stank has worn off Parliament-Funkadelic after all these years.
But there still was enough to make a pretty good party.
Copyright © 2015, The Morning Call
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