I witnessed a little bit of music history last night as Sly & The Family Stone performed in NY for the first time in 20 years. You may have seen Sly's much anticipated performance at the 2006 Grammy's. Nobody had seen him for decades and he came out after a medley tribute and gave a shaky rendition of 'I Want To Take You Higher', before wandering off stage after a few minutes.
Last night I had the option of seeing an 8pm or 10pm show, and apart from being a school night, I wondered whether there would even be a 10pm show given the guy is ancient and drug addled.
So I got there at 8.15pm for the 8pm show and the crowd waited patiently til 8.50pm when Sly finally wandered out, sporting a black mohawk and wraparound sunglasses. His daughter, a few second cousins and two original band members were eventually introduced after some waffling.
The crowd got antsy as Sly mentioned he hadn't made it to rehearsals, or the sound check, and wasn't sure how to work 'this new toy' (his electric piano). He tapped out a few notes and consulted with his daughter and a guitarist, a manager came out on stage, and it was... messy. It seemed as if he had stage fright, and was out of it, and I watched nervously as his daughter was making 'come on dad, you can do it' faces'. The whole band held their breath in anticipation.
The crowd was cranky. Some people were yelling and booing, some were trying to shush the rabblerousers to coax Sly into singing something or playing anything. Eventually the band just started playing. And that set the tone for the 1 hour set.
Sly would join in for a bit and then leave the stage, he'd sing and then disappear, he'd turn away from the crowd and the keyboard and just nod at the drummer. There were signs everywhere saying no photos, no videos, and several announcements, but half way through Sly yelled 'you can take as many photos as you want. i already been to jail, I don't care'. And the dance floor lit up with the glow of camera phones, capturing the mayhem.
The poor bandmembers covered his vocals (you could tell they had a plan B) and just kept the show going, pumping through the hits one after the other, trying to make up for his erratic behaviour. At one stage Sky leaned into a microphone and said "I'm an old man, I have to go pee" and left for ten minutes. His daughter and one of the guitarists followed him off stage after excusing themselves. By this stage everyone in the audience was chatting to their neighbour about what the hell was going on.
It was kinda sad: when he hit it they sounded fantastic - all those nights in the red velvet rooms of Saratoga dancing to funk were not a waste - but he wasn't having much fun up there . I wasn't really expecting someone notoriously addicted to PCP and cocaine, and who missed his own shows in the height of his career, to be totally together. Glad I got to hear them anyway.
I wonder what the 10pm show was like. I'm sure some unflattering reviews will emerge in the press today.
1 comment:
Legendary - I don't think you could have expected too much more from him.
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