What was that? Maybe one of the saddest TV moments I have witnessed. Another sad one was, when the pope mumbled his blessings for the last time. Sly reminded me of that. Whoever thought he was on to the idea of the decade by bringing him back on stage was clearly wrong.
Slys whereabouts were almost unkown since he completely vanished from the scene in 1987, and among musicians, who worship his records and funk inventions as a blueprint for everything that came after, it was well accepted, that he had left the public eye since he had fried his brain with drugs and his output was seemingly over. It was an urban myth, that he was indeed not dead, you could run into him, kinda like the elvis stories, but real. Sure, a sly stone comeback was an often talked about wish of many people, and, if he would have rocked, it would have been a magical moment, concert tickets and greatest hits albums flying of the shelves.
The band and the singers, who did a medley with all his hits before launching into "Higher", were excellent, and actually looked seriously thrilled to be a part of that event. When Sly came out, one hand bandaged (?), he looked to the floor and NOT happy and really shy. After the second line of the verses in "Higher" was missing, stuff started going wrong. Sly was mumbling the choruses (or his mike was too low) and after he got all his balls together to go to the front of the stage, sporting a shy grin, wanting to get interaction with the audience, the band stopped the groove part and went back to the chorus instead, all resulting in him leaving the stage, the musicians exchanging sheepish glances. So he was there a little over a minute total. Wow.
Why was Larry Graham not on bass? Maybe he didn't wanna have it. And after seeing Larry a lot of times live, doing all the Sly Stone hits perfectly, even ballsier and more uptodate, I think, that we don't need the composer on stage necessarily. Sad, but true.
Additional link: Sly completely wasted on Dick Cavett show 1970
The duet between Herbie Hancock and Christina Aguilera singing "a song for you" was a nice experiment. And it stayed exactly that.
Two people from 2 completely different schools. It felt like witnessing 2 foreigners, who don't speak each others language, explainig stuff to each other with hands and feet, not succeeding, and parting ways soon after, scratching their heads.
Labels: musik
