E.U.
(with the First Family of Funk and Slave)
At the State Theatre - Falls Church, VA (12/26/03)
Garry "Diaperman" Shider.....clothed!
The First Family of Funk started at 9:40pm, featuring
P-Funk veterans Garry "Diaperman" Shider and Jerome
"Bigfoot" Brailey. The first song was "Cholly".......funky
with some good basswork. "Red Hot Momma" was exactly red-hot with
Garry giving up some smokin' lead guitar riffs that sound like Jimi Hendrix's
"Voodoo Chile" in the beginning 60 seconds of the song!!
"Standing on the Verge of Gettin' It On" was good, but I had to step
outside the performance room to handle something. When I came back, the band was
playing some THC Mercenaries stuff with the THC rappers up-front.
Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey on the
heavy foot!!
Bigfoot broke it down with the opening drum riffs of "Cosmic
Slop".....'Cosmic Slop" could have been better if the guys actually
played the entire show......instead, Garry sang only two rounds of "Space
people.....universal love" before jumping into the verses.
Garry stopped the band at the start of the chorus to say "That's it....no
more!"......but, after hearing fans groan about it, he decided to sing the
chorus with the band coming in on the mellow tip. Then, the band did a good
amount of "One Nation Under a Groove"......."One Nation"
should have been dropped, so the guys could dig DEEP into "Cosmic
Slop". The First Family of Funk set ended at 10:25pm.
E.U. started their set at 10:45pm with some
infectious go-go music. The second song was the song they performed with
Salt-N-Pepa....."It's Your Thing", featuring Sugar Bear on deep,
Sugarfoot-style vocals! "A Taste of Your Love" was a lovely ballad
with some good synthesizer riffs. It was on to an old school jam with a great
percussion solo (on congas)! After a little while, it was time to do "Da Butt"......the
audience lit up and began their moneymakers....some hot go-go stuff like the
studio version, but the best part of the show was seeing the female lead
vocalist shaking her ass.......OWWW!!! (as Sugar Bear would say!) The E.U. set
ended at 11:30pm.
At 12:05am, Slave began their funky set with
"The Party Song", featuring some good horns! Lead vocalist Floyd sang
lead vocals on "Weak at the Knees"......a Steve Arrington song (not a
SLAVE song) that probably would sound better coming from Steve's mouth.
"Just a Touch of Love" featured the killer bass solo of Mark Adams
and some powerful drumming towards the end. "Watching You" featured
some good bass, and "Slide" (the show's closer) had every fan sliding
to and fro on the dancefloor!! The lead guitar solo was so hot that it melted
the woofers and tweeters in the room and Mark's dangerous bass solo was enough
to open a 6-foot-deep crater in Washington Street (in front of the State
Theatre). The Slave extravaganza was over at 12:55am.
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