Review: George Clinton, Bristol O2 Academy

In much the same way that heavy metal has a trio of seminal bands that defined the genre (Sabbath, Zep & Purple) so funk has a trio of founding fathers in James Brown, Sly Stone and George Clinton. A rammed Academy had the chance to find out why Clinton has this accolade when he brought the Parliament / Funkadelic tour to Bristol.

Everyone in attendance can vouch for the fact that there ain’t no party like a P-Funk party, but it’s difficult conveying in a few hundred words why this is emphatically the case. For a start there were anywhere between five and fifteen players on stage at any given time during the set. All of those players, whether veterans or relative newcomers are talented musicians and there was so much happening in each tune that it would be difficult to single out any moment or band member for special attention. 

The band were on stage early, hitting that funk from the start – no matter how seemingly chaotic or improvised the song, the core band (guitar, bass & drums) hit a groove and locked themselves in the pocket. This left acres of room for horn solos, embellishment from the keys, counter melody and counter rhythm along with old-school gospel testifying, soul shouting, and lascivious funky crooning along with rapping and frankly bizarre vocal interludes: often all at once. The genius of Clinton is that he can take all of these disparate elements and cajole the musicians he works with to produce an irresistible, joyful and uplifting groove that ensured dancing feet and smiling faces for the duration of the two hour plus set.

Alas, stage space and (undoubtedly) austerity measures meant there was no mothership descending and ascending during the set, but Sir Nose D’voidoffunk made several appearances – performing all manner of eye watering contortions and clearly causing palpating moistness amongst the ladies in the house, several of whom were enticed on stage to strut their stuff, much to their sweaty pleasure. The audience as a whole were transported from start to finish – a sea of writhing grooving bodies, word perfect on the call and response sections of the show and more than capable of verses as well as choruses during the fan favourites.

The set covered the convoluted oeuvre of Clinton – hitting on his (nominal) solo work, P-Funk and the two core bands. One Nation Under a Groove still sounds immense, a funky call to arms par excellence; Freak of the Week was, well, freaky as funk and Flashlight did the seemingly impossible and ratcheted the groove up several notches complete with a fluid bass solo natch. As for Maggot Brain, we received ten minutes of remorseless guitar heroics that would leave a Download crowd in raptures. This was arguably the only time the crowd slipped from Clinton’s hand, with some of the crowd not willing to fully enjoy the fact that there has always been a massive element of rock guitar blended with the chicken-scratch wah-wah (and if you doubt that, see what Ultimate Classic Rock has to say here). Who says a funk band can’t play rock?

Photo by Tony Benjamin