At
10:50pm, Bobby Floyd got the audience pumped up with some gutbucket
funkiness--he had the whole audience funkatized!! He performed a funk original (with Greg
Greene's funky rhythm guitarisms & excellent lead guitaring and Booker
King's good, phunky bass licks!!!) and a reggae original (with Bruce Martin's
excellent keyboards, Paul Shapiro's taste of baritone sax, and Booker &
Tommy Drayton's bass & drum solo, respectively)! The organ riffs and wah-wah guitar were
irresistble on Sly Stone's "If You Want Me To Stay". Fiery guitar
soloism was the highlight of "Juicy Loosey"! Booker smoked The Cooler
with a thumpasorus bass intro on Gil Scott-Heron's "The Bottle"! More
smokey guitar riffs was the highlight of Dennis Edwards's "Don't Look Any
Further" . The band
churned out some serious funk on Bobby Byrd's "I Know You Got Soul",
as the solos on bass & drums were enough to shake New York's meat-packing
district into a frenzy!
At 12:10am, the Bobby Floyd band did an encore perofrmance of James Brown's
"Sex Machine" with some good keyboards by Bruce and Frankie Floyd,
and good rhythm guitaring by Greg. The Bobby Floyd experience ended at 12:20am.
At
12:50am, TM Stevens ripped apart The Cooler with some funk-rock explosiveness
on "I'm a Believer", with fierce drums (by Gonzo), red-hot guitarisms
(by Kirk Douglas), and bone-crushing bass force (by TM himself). "Ground
Zero" had a part that sounded like Funkadelic's "Red Hot Momma"
and it was DA SHIZNIT!!! "Ground Zero" included a guest rapper by the
name of K. Boogie.
During "Ground
Zero", TM and everyone did the "Sexy MF" chant (by Prince), and
three beautiful ladies were escorted onstage to shake their asses!!! TM asked
for a male volunteer to shake it with the last female volunteer and he grabbed
"moi" (yours truly)!! Brookenstein shook his ass with a cute white
female!! There
was a funky showdown between the bass and the drums!!! "Turn Me On" featured
fiery, 1000-degree Celsius hot guitarisms by Kirk!! "The Gift (We're Not
Goin' Home)" was an inspirational, powerful rock ballad with earth-shaking
bass introism by TM Stevens!! TM got in the audience and coerced some fans
into plucking a string from his bass (a new, very interesting concept on
audience participation) on the Graham Central Station song, "Hair"!! The next song ventured into the world of
the Mothership Connection, with chants of "Swing Down, Sweet Chariot, stop
and let me ride!" and an adaptation of "Take Your Dead Ass
Home"!! The fans sang as if the mothership was actually going to land
inside The Cooler!!
The rock energy increased about 50-fold on the hardcore rocker "Raw
(Like Sushi)".....the rock energy caused several fans to fall victim to
dehydration and exhaustion!! WHEN YOU SEE TM STEVENS PLAY, YOU BETTER HAVE SOME
PARAMEDICS ON STANDBY!! At 1:55am, the TM Stevens rock experience ended.
Submit suggestions or comments to david.brooks@brookenstein.com