James Brown has seniority but, entertaining though he is, I genuinely think he's a bit past it.
And, entertaining though he is, one of the things that has always annoyed me about soul music is that he gets the credit for a show in which he is outnumbered about 10 to 1 by anonymous supporting musicians (all of whom are much better at what they do than he is at singing these days), has a couple of guest vocalists do songs for him, and basically nowadays is mostly there to add his name to the proceedings and occasionally do a little dance.
So, entertaining though he was, I wouldn't have gone to see him headlining, and he wouldn't have filled Hyde Park on his own. Regardless of minority opinions that they're shite, the Chilis are a supergroup in live music at the moment - by the logic of live music the headliner is the one who's going to sell the tickets.
James Brown was good fun. I won't have it said that he wasn't entertaining. But I'd rather have a Flea bass solo than an announcer saying "Mr. James Brown" 10 times in a row, so I feel that the precedence was justified.
Also, the Chilis are like ten times better than James Brown. He may have been funking before they were born, but they funk harder.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-06-22 10:03 am (UTC)And, entertaining though he is, one of the things that has always annoyed me about soul music is that he gets the credit for a show in which he is outnumbered about 10 to 1 by anonymous supporting musicians (all of whom are much better at what they do than he is at singing these days), has a couple of guest vocalists do songs for him, and basically nowadays is mostly there to add his name to the proceedings and occasionally do a little dance.
So, entertaining though he was, I wouldn't have gone to see him headlining, and he wouldn't have filled Hyde Park on his own. Regardless of minority opinions that they're shite, the Chilis are a supergroup in live music at the moment - by the logic of live music the headliner is the one who's going to sell the tickets.
James Brown was good fun. I won't have it said that he wasn't entertaining. But I'd rather have a Flea bass solo than an announcer saying "Mr. James Brown" 10 times in a row, so I feel that the precedence was justified.
Also, the Chilis are like ten times better than James Brown. He may have been funking before they were born, but they funk harder.