P-Funk Funks Up Boston
Written by Ben Pogany Saturday, 20 February 2010 00:00
George Clinton is to funk what Bob Marley is to reggae. George doesn't just play funk music, he is funk music. And he never stops being relevant. Though the heyday of the genre have long since come and gone, George Clinton & The Parliament Funkadelic stand today as arguably the single most important influence on the development of hip hop. From Dr. Dre to Snoop Dogg to Outcast, samples derived from their material positively litter the modern urban music scene. However, those that came to Friday's House of Blues show were not there to see hip hop. They were there to see the real thing, the godfathers of funk. And did they ever. Friday's George Clinton & The Parliament-Funkadelic show was an auditory and visual spectacle in the truest sense. If you've never seen this group or any manifestation of it play before, do yourself a favor and go out right now and buy tickets. Seriously. 
I'll wait...
This was everything a concert should be and then some. Musicians both legendary and unknown performing their asses off to a packed house of music-lovers ranging across all races, ages, and creeds. You had your classic numbers (Flashlight, Atomic Dog) and your new material that left you thinking "I don't know what that was, but I must own it." Oodles upon oodles of singers, dancers, drummers, guitarists, horn players and one 57-year-old mohawked black man in a diaper (that would be Rock and Roll Hall-of-Famer Garry "Starchild" Shider, and yes, you're going to want to refer to the photos for this one) all seemlessly moving across a stage that was at times more crowded than the floor below. Always something ridiculous to look at. Never a dull moment. Music that positively envelops you.
Truth be told, this is not your father's P-Funk. Heck, this might not even be your older brothers' P-Funk. Today, the band seems like more than anything else a vehicle with which to showcase new and talented musicians. And boy do they know how to pick 'em. George did his thing for awhile, but you would be fooling yourself to come expecting 1970's-era George. So he's old. Not quite poop-my-pants old, but he's getting there. At this point, George is a bit more like a figure head, not all that much unlike a dreadlocked Queen of England. This is not to say that this took any
thing away from the show. The shear rapture this man exudes on stage is unlike almost any performer alive today. He still knows how to work a crowd, and yet is willing to step to the side when need be to give a young artist their spotlight. George can often be seen standing alongside whoever is doing their solo at the moment, pointing at them as if to say, "you gotsta be checking this shit out."
And he's right. You gotsta be checkin this shit out. Each artist was phenomenal in their own unique way. Take Belita Woods, a vet of the 70's R&B/disco scene who combined the soul of Aretha Franklin with the gutteral cry of Macy Gray. Or the intoxicating acapella stylings of saxaphonist Greg Thomas. Backup singers transported directly out of 1970's Soul Train. And who can forget the jaw-dropping, guitar-shredding rendition of Maggot Brain. Just wow.
PS, if you haven't yet been to Boston's House of Blues, you are seriously missing out. Located just across from The Cathedral, Fenway Park, HOB offers music-lovers a new house of worship. Adorning the ceiling above the stage hangs a series of religious symbols that culminate in a centerpiece that reads All for One--Who Do You Love? How very apt. A venue as it should be- a place where people of all creeds can come to celebrate life in its purest form- through music. Like religion, we all might have different tastes but at the end of the day, it's all music, the language of the divine. Make my funk the P-Funk, today and forever after.
