At 8:00pm, old-school Latin-funk band WAR began their
set with the moody "The World is a Ghetto", featuring some great sax
playing by Fernando Harkless. For the next song, "The Cisco Kid",
O.G. WAR member/keyboardist/vocalist Lonnie Jordan had the audience singing the
first verse of the song. WAR followed with the funkier "Me and Baby
Brother", followed by "Slippin' into Darkness", featuring some
of the nastiest lead guitar riffs ever heard from guitarist Stuart Ziff! Next,
Lonnie did a little bit of doo-wop piano playing & singing, before going
into this insane, off-the-wall piano riffing....what became of this...the song
"Why Can't We Be Friends?", a fun sing-along with all the members of
WAR taking on lead vocal spotlights during the song. "Low Rider"
sounded good, especially since the bass player Pancho Tomaselli started playing
the Mandrill song "Hang Loose" on bass during the middle of the
song....this is where Lonnie introduced everyone in the band...each musician
had a three-minute spotlight to show off their talent:
At
9:50pm, the members of MANDRILL
(Afrocentric/Latin/funk/rock/jazz/airthang-else-good-music old-school band)
walked onstage and began the first song....this time, it wasn't the
instrumental "Mandrill" (the normal show-opener)....it was "Hang
Loose"...(HMMM, maybe they played "Hang Loose" to let the
fans that WAR was playing *THEIR* original song during the "Low
Rider" segment.) Marc Rey was electrifying on some wicked lead guitar
riffing!!
A POINT TO NOTE: Since
Wilson brother Carlos couldn't make the gig, the other Wilson brothers Lou, Dr.
Ric and Wilfredo (aka Wolf) decided to play primarily percussion instruments
for the night...man-of-many-hats Keith Barry (lot of saxophone, flute &
violin) and a special guest trombonist & trumpeteer handled a good bit of
horns this night.
"Rollin' On" sounded good, but without Carlos in the house, vocally
it wasn't the same...but Lou worked his butt off handling Carlos's vocal parts.
Because of Carlos's absence, the song "House of Wood" took on a
different key (or sound), with Lou doing lead vocals...but, the harmonica part
(of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" by Keith at the end was a nice touch.
"Mandrill" was the next song, and this song featured a large group of
guest percussionist (lot of drums...congas and all that!) that played for maybe
8 to 10 minutes... and the new drummer Stacey Lamont Sydnor worked harder than
a one-legged man in a kick fight contest, as he was pounding the hell out of
the those drums for his big solo!!! (I still miss former drummer Neftali
Santiago, though....apparently, he is no longer with the band) "Suzie
Caesar (Can You Get It?)" was a nice surprise to the set list....it was
just SO FUNKY and the fans were groovin' to the max on this one!
"Cohelo" was amazing, with Keith Barry doing the flute solo, the
violin part and some saxophone blowing, too! (Keith is one BAD MOFO!) The Wilson
Bros. percussion was good and so were the beautiful vibraphone riffs by Arlan
Schierbaum.
The One Sun Lion Ra came out and the show began a hip-hop event, which a lot
of fans were not feeling (I could hear groans from some of the fans)...The One
Sun (aka Rais Wilson, son of Lou Wilson) performed "Black Woman" and
"Keep It Live" (featuring Lou on percussion).
"Mango Meat" was good, but the fans were ON FIRE when Mandrill
performed "Fencewalk"......the DANCE FUNK was so thick you could cut
it with a knife. The high-energy continued into the last song of the set
"Git It All" (which made a lot of ladies "shake some
booty"!!!) The encore performance of "Ape is High" featured some
great lead guitar funkiness by Marc Rey!! At 11:20pm, it was all over.
Submit suggestions or comments to david.brooks@brookenstein.com