Morris Day & The Time
At B.B. King's, NYC - 2/03/01
I
arrived a little late at 9:00pm to see the magic that is Morris Day & The
Time. Freeze froze the audience with some PHUNKY basslines and Monte Moir stank
up the restaurant with some smelly synthesized riffs on "Get It Up"
and "C-O-O-L"!!! The big guy on second keyboards, Chance, provided some illicitly
nasty riffs during the "Go Morris Go!" chant! Jellybean Johnson provided the fans with a
tight, delicious drum solo on "777-9311"....Torry jumped in with some
fiery lead guitarisms & Freeze did some bass-slapping funk!!
"If The Kid
Can't Make You Come, Nobody Can" was the background to the Old Schooler's
Quiz, where Morris and Jerome Benton asked the audience to identify the type of
shoes and pants the duo were sporting......answers: Stacy Adams and baggies.
Then the duo asked for some adjectives for the pants......answers: fresh
pair of baggies or the hotel with the largest ballroom!! Torry did
some blues-funk guitarisms (B.B. King-style) that smoked!!!
Some new additions to The Time's set that made this show even better than the
previous ones:
1. Ice Cream Castles
2. White Girls
3. U Got 2 Shake Something (chant)
"Ice Cream Castles" featured spurts of
hardcore rock guitarisms and the romanticizing of a beautiful nubian princess
by guitar, courtesy of Mr. Nasty Good-tarist, Torry!! "White Girls" was a Prince bootleg tune that I
received back in 1995...... it is a funky song with some JB influence,
especially on rhythm guitar and bass!! "U Got 2 Shake Somethin'" is
another bootleg song that I received in 1996 (sources say it was done by a
group named Flash, but I think it's Prince in disguise)!! After heavy ass-shakin' by the female fans onstage, Jerome
announced, "Alright, you got your 12 minutes of fame, now get your ass off
the stage!" Jerome started the chant for "The Walk", but that
changed into "The Bird"......everyone was up trying to take off like
eagles!!! The show ended at 9:55pm, but the
encore came at 10:00pm.......it was "Jungle Love" which was preceded
by Jerome having everyone do a variation of the Morris Day "wild ape
call". Everyone caught a bad case of "sorebuttitis", from
uncontrollably shakin' their moneymakers!!" The set ended at 10:05pm.
I got the chance to get backstage to meet Morris and the guys. I spent most of
the time with Jerome, Bowlegged Lou (of 1980's muscle-bound R&B band, Full
Force) who is currently doing some production work, and some of my friends.
Submit suggestions or comments to david.brooks@brookenstein.com