To mount Kanye a worthy challenge, West Holts summons cosmic aid. Its landing site prepared by a rousing set of android Bond tunes and tropical carnival house from Norwegian DJ Todd Terje and his troupe of huge-haired dancers, George Clinton’s Mothership descends, carrying Dr Funkenstein himself alongside his various agents of supergroovalisticprosifunkstication and powered, they say, by solid chunks of The Funk.
We don’t get to experience the awesome power of a fully operational mothership – the original 1,200lb 70s spaceship prop that Clinton toured with his various P-funk incarnations resides in the Smithsonian Institute now – but we do get a fully blown family affair, with both Parliament-Funkadelic and Family Stone helping him administer the funk to us vitamin P-deficient earthlings.
Except we’re hardly deficient. Clinton didn’t merely help pioneer funk music in its formative years – his beats form the bedrock of a huge swath of hip-hop too, particularly Dr Dre’s G-funk. His music has become the resting heartbeat of the modern age, and what we get tonight is a classic revue showcase of this mercurial songbook. It’s split into two halves. First comes a Sly and the Family Stone section, wherein the crystal-white-clad band jam through Everyday People, Dance to the Music, Stand!, Family Affair and others while attempting to instigate the Bring Back Love Society, an online utopia formed by every one of us sending internet love to three others. (They are clearly not a band who’ve ever read a Guardian comments thread.)
Then the stage is set for the looser Parliament-Funkadelic free-for-all, a jiving block party of cat-tailed backing singers, alien-voiced rappers and stage-wide attempts to beckon down the mothership. There’s a slight element of Brian Wilson to the event, in that Clinton’s large and brilliant band do much of the heavy funking for him these days. But an opening half-hour of contemporary rap clicks and crunches pitched partway between the Sugarhill Gang and Nicki Minaj do a fine job of asserting George’s standing as a root rap architect. As the P-funk party resolutely refuses to stop, it gradually slips into loose-limbed 70s funk territory – Flash Light, (Not Just) Knee Deep and the Noel Fielding-endorsed Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker). It’s a glorious hour full of skat interludes, indulgent rock guitar solos and effortless party vibes and it all ends with a gigantic fish leading the inevitable stage invasion. Out of this world.
