Chris and I were given some tickets to Sly & The Family Stone at House of Blues last night (Sat. April 26th). As we are both fans (I am especially fond of the album FRESH) we were quite excited to witness this spectacle... and what a spectacle it was.
As I drove past the club, searching endlessly for parking, a massive snake of a line weaved its way down Sunset blvd. I looked at my clock. 11:15pm. Shit. Doors were at 10:30pm. Chris said "no worries. Sly is notorious for being late.". Ok. Sweet.
Finally found parking and made our way down the steepest hill in Hollywood. The line had waned and we managed to get in rather quick. Still it was now after 11:30pm. He must have started. I raced in to find... a closed curtain. Cool we didn't miss anything.
Looked around. The crowd was pretty eclectic. I felt pretty young for once as most people were past 40 or 50 actually.
Skip to over an hr later. Several attempts from the crowd to lure Sly out, through chants and screams, have failed. My eyes were closing. Suddenly I got a shove from behind and trail of wasted looking people and security barge through the crowd where we were standing. For a second, a small bundled character, which could have easily been mistaken for ET, bustled by with a cheeky grin. "Slyyyy!" someone yelled.
It was still 20 mins. before he went on...well... before he stood in front of the curtain and rambled in an almost inaudible slur about having to go to the bathroom. Apparently thats just what he did 'cuase he was gone for another 5 mins.
The curtains rolled open and there he stood, or rather stooped. A simple lyric breathed feebly from his lips "Don't call me nigga whitey, don't call me whitey nigga'".
Somehow it was brilliant and terrifying at the same time.
At any moment during the show it felt like everything might just fall apart. For this reason we stayed.
They played the hits and played them well. Barely a minute or two went by without feeling the urge to sing along or shake your hips.
Seeing sly in person was bizarre, to say the least. As the result of extensive drug use (I assume) his body moves and curves in a way where you expect strings to be attached to his limbs and a puppeteer to be perched above controlling his moves. He wore a brilliant generals coat ala Jimi Hendrix, sported a strange mohawk hidden beneath a black bandanna. He was the human embodiment of Jim Henson's greatest creation.
That being said. Sly sang only a few lines, meandered on the keyboard like a teenager on acid, and disappeared half way through the set to never return. This seemed to have little effect on the band who just kept going with the set.
His band couldn't have been cast better. A token white guy in full "ghetto getup" playing keys, a couple of soul sistas- one who'd seen better days but sang like a queen- the other a bright eyed curvy mama who screamed for the spotlight, a top notch horn section featuring a senior citizen 'sista' who could move like a rattle snake and play the trumpet like Louise Armstrong (she was dressed in a Gospel preachers robes), a guitar and bass duo in shimmering gold, and a "what what: brotha- my term for that guy you see in rap groups who raises the roof, gets the crowd goin', and says "what... what" every now and then (and basically filled in whenever Sly got lost). He took over when Sly mysteriously left the stage.
All in all this show was both amazing and a bit sad. Its great that Sly can still get up there and do his thing but at times I felt like I was watching a comedy of disaster. His charm is as evident as ever and he exudes a warm and intriguing presence. His songs still came off well but the band often had no idea where Sly was planning to go with the number. The band was stacked with great musicians, the choice of songs was perfect but still I wonder... Where did Sly go?
I just hope he's still alive.
Rob Kolar
