GEORGE CLINTON & THE P-FUNK ALLSTARS
(with THE OHIO PLAYERS)

At the Mann Music Center - Philly (8/19/06)

 

The Ohio Players (featuring original drummer Diamond Williams & guitarist Chet Willis) started their set around 9:00pm, with "Skin Tight"...the biggest problem with this song was the somewhat sloppiness of the horns--TIGHTEN UP A LITTLE, FELLAS! The next song "Funky Worm" was even worse...it just sounded so out-of-tune that I didn't even recognize the song at first (actually, I don't know if these guys should be doing this song, because they really would need Junie Morrison to pull off his trademark high-pitched synthesizer sounds). They performed a love ballad with Diamond stopping midway to introduce the band members...the earthquaking funk bass and the keyboardist's soulful vocalizing afterwards were da bomb! "Love Rollercoaster" and "O-H-I-O" were pretty funky. "Fire" was the encore performance, featuring Diamond doing a speech on throwing terrorism (referring to everything since the 9-11-01 NYC/DC bombings), racism and other bad "isms" into the "fire". The band was playing this bass-driven groove for about 4 minutes, before going into the actual song...the one criticism I had was the fact that the guitar solo seemed to suffer from being too low in the mix (every other instrument seemed to drown out the guitar). The Ohio Players set ended at 9:30pm.



The P-Funk Allstars started at 9:50pm with the funky "Bop Gun (Endangered Species)", which was followed by "Undisco Kidd" and Belita Woods's "The Way She Moves". "Cosmic Slop" featured some good rhythm guitaring by Cordell "Boogie" Mosson and some nasty lead guitar slaying by the one and only......MICHAEL "KIDD FUNKADELIC" HAMPTON!!! George Clinton came out and joined in on vocals on "Tear the Roof Off the Sucka" and "Up For the Down Stroke" (which featured profane chants from "Get Off Your Ass and Jam" and the crowd favorite "To the window, to the balls...") After Belita did a few lines from the Jimmy G & the Tackheads gem "Slingshot", PooPoo Man came out and did a little of the James Brown classic "Payback" to the groove of "Down Stroke".

Two things that bothered me:

1.   What kind of grown man calls himself "PooPoo Man"? (I guess you can't have the funk without the stink! LOL!)

2.   Who was this white fool that was dancing all over the place, all uncoordinated and spastic movements...bending over and shakin' his behind to the audience, jumping to the floor and pushing himself back up. All I could say was "What in the HELL was that?????????!!!!!!!!!!"




"Flashlight" (with a chorus of "Electric Spanking of War Babies") featured the contortist dancing of Sir Nose, while "(Not Just) Knee Deep/Sentimental Journey" was interesting because Greg Thomas didn't have the fans do a little bit of scatting with him (probably because of time constraints). "Atomic Dog" started with the drummer Frankie "Kash" Waddy doing the drumbeats while George instructed the fans to clap to the same beat...very good performance of the song, by the way. The "Hall of Fame" riff featured the bass rhythms (provided by Lige Curry) of "I Call My Baby Pussycat" and the sax/trumpet riffing (provided by Greg Thomas & Bennie Cowan, respectively) of the chorus of "Music for My Mother".

However, the funk stopped and the stink bomb dropped when George and company foolishly jumped into the dreadful "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" complete with (LISTEN TO THIS, READER)...a white girl dancing with a F**KIN' mini-skirt and a pair of F**KIN' roller skates...WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???!!!! Sorry, I had to walk out of the amphitheatre (actually, I think that was the last song of their set). The show ended around 11:50pm.



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