At
9:05pm, the James Brown Band started with some "Soul Power" music.
Two white guys, dressed in white shirts & blue pants, came out and did some
splendid dance routines, complete with spins and splits......I guess James
still wishes that he could do that stuff! (I wish that I was much, much older,
just to see James Brown back in the early 1970's when he was in rare form!
James doesn't have half of the energy he used to.) With "Ain't It Funky
Now" as the backdrop, longtime emcee Danny Ray introduced this white
woman, Tammy Ray. This performer was a waste of time as she tried to sing a
couple of uptempo tunes and one blues song. (All I saw was a blond-haired
fluesy dancin' around with her hair whisking from side to side.........SOMEBODY
SHOOT ME!!)
Danny
Ray introduced the Godfather of Soul at 9:30pm, by announcing many of his hits
and the band played snippets of them! A standing ovation occurred as James Brown walked onstage. The Bittersweets were ontstage,
backing up James vocally, while the three sexy dancers were stimulating all the
men sexually with overtly sexy choreography!! James had the audience
"Get Up Offa That Thing" and "Release The Pressure". As
everyone got up off their things, one of the horn players did a hot saxophone
solo! J. B. kept everyone groovin' with some "Cold
Sweat"....yeah, everybody was in funk heaven, enjoying themselves!
Everybody was also "Doin' It To Death", havin' a funky good time
("we gotta take it high-------er!") James proved that he was still
smooth as he was dancing with one of the Bittersweets during his performance of
"Try Me". Then, J.B. did "Soul Power" which included a
piece of "Soul Man"......unfortunately, the hornz were too soft
during this performance. (Actually, the sound system wasn't really up-to-par
anyway!) The music stopped when James Brown pleaded to the young folks to stop
the violence, and Reverend Al Sharpton was invited to the stage to invite everyone
to a moment of silence for those who lost their lives tragically. The music
started about 10 minutes later with a snippet of "Prisoner of Love",
seguing into "Georgia on My Mind", featuring Martha High on co-lead
vocals. Her vocals were good, but there were parts where her vocals were barely
audible. Parts of the "Georgia" song was played in an uptempo, jazzy
manner! James's son, Darryl, was the featured guitarist on this tune! "If
I Ruled The World" was good, but I got the feeling that James was starting
to tire out, because his vocals were a bit incomprehensible......it was like
J.B. was shouting the words in a hoarse tone!
The
next event was a magic act, performed by a magician! After suffering through
that, James Brown got nasty on the organ during the performance of "Every
Beat of My Heart (Every Part of My Heart)" That was followed by a snippet
of a Ray Charles song that J.B. sang. I loved the crazy drum solo, performed by
this big guy who was standing with the "large" drums & congas! A
screaming saxophone solo was next, along with Hollie "making love" to
his trumpet, by making these "sucking" sounds and blowing one or two
notes at a time! The music stopped and Reverend Al Sharpton was back onstage
doing another speech.......GEEZ!! "It's a Man's Man's Man's World"
was next, followed by a funky performance of "Funk on Ah Roll".
"I Got You (I Feel Good)" was great, with a white woman singing
co-lead vocals near the end of the song! "Please, Please" was the
following song, where Danny Ray draped J. B. with a green cape (with GODFATHER
OF SOUL on the back of it). James was led away from centerstage, when he rushed
back to the spot he left! A couple of minutes later, the same routine happened,
except Danny had a red cape! The last song of the evening, "Sex
Machine", was an absolute tour-de-funk!!! J. B. played the organ for a few
minutes, then started playing the drums! Everyone in the audience was in a
dance frenzy!! The show ended at 11:00pm.
Submit suggestions or comments to david.brooks@brookenstein.com