I'm just back from the Clear Soul Forces concert !
Turned out it was in Cargo and not in Big Band Café.
Turned out Bootsy Collins was playing there also tonight. Since they hadn't sold enough presales they decided to merge both concerts for the same price. 8€ for a membership owner. I didn't know about it but still seeing Clear Soul Forces for just about 8€ seemed like a good deal !
Turned out I didn't even had to pay for my ticket. As I was locking my bike some dude came along and asked if I had already bought my ticket. I thought he was gonna try ans sell me one for cheap but...
Turned out he had 4 passes and they were only three. So for a beer, I got in.
Turned out the CSF performance was great. Really energetic from the begining, cool intrumentals, really 90's style. Those who are still moping about how Hip Hop was cooler in the 90's should immediately go see that band live instead of paying hundreds to go see Wu-Tang 2014.
Turned out Bootsy Collins was just as energetic but in a radically funkier way. Great presence, mind blowing bass sounds, cool band, and that incredible FUNK persona that he so well embodies. On stage it just felt like the 70's were back again in all there sweetness. It made me think of the 20th Anniversary mix Snoop Dogg released a couple of months ago.
Turned out in the crowd it wasn't that much FUNKYLAND. Despite those two amazing performers, the crowd was numb, awkward, lost, unresponsive. And that's the worst that can happen to you as a performer.
Most people clearly had come to see Bootsy and were unaware of CSF. OK, no biggy. I thought the relationship between HH and Funk was more obvious. It clearly was not to the people in the crowd.
During the CSF set, as one of the EMCEE's was trying to wake up the crowd, some dude went "Parle en Français !" reproaching the rapper not to be able to do his crowd motivation in French. (!!!) That was just stunning to me. So stunning, I wasn't even able to shout back at the dude "Understand English you moron !".
For Bootsy it was the same struggle. Though his Funk infused personality was much more easy to catch than the aggressive and fast lyricists stunts of CSF, the crowd clearly didn't know much about singing the FUNK anthems that Bootsy was juggling for us : Groove is in The Heart, all Parliament hits and George Clinton anthems, De La Soul's
Me Myself and I sample : as he and his band were trying to get the people to sing back, all you could see on their faces was sheer desolation of how small the crowd response was.
Turned out both performances were crippled by acoustic fedbacks ( larsen ! ). That Cargo concert hall is sinking !
Of course there were a few connoisseur, people who really give a funk, enthiusiasts who know the tunes, understood English or just felt like partying but that wasn't quite enough to match the infectious apathy of the youngsters and elders, stiff as poles, who had come here in search of... what exactly ?
If you're not ready to enjoy a concert why would you pay for it ? Cos' you need a way to spend your hard earned parent's money and any way to get out the house is good ? Cos' you got better to do on a wenesday night in Caen ? Or maybe being stiff and unresponsive in a concert is your best way to show gratitude for a band's performance ? A band that crossed the Atlantic to play for you. And you're nodding your head ? Really ? Is that all you got ?
Oh I'm sorry, I guess you're only just shy and you felt awkward cos' your don't know what they were saying.
Well let me tell you : they were saying shit about your ability to party and they just couldn't believe their ears at how useless you were as a crowd member ! Now you know.
Turend out Bootzilla went for a 5 minute crowd bath. After teasing the crowd 10 minutes about doing it while making them sing along CAEN IS FUN-KY. That was real cool to see. But the bass solos that came before that were just mind blowing. Go ahaed Bootsy tap that bass ! How does he manage such a fat bass sound is just incredible. A couple of times, they just played that FUNKY over sampled p-funk tune that you loved , and suddenly by the end, it just morphes into a glam funk rock heavy monster sound for the sake of loudness and glitter.
Pure musical genius.
Although both performance were amazing, the attitude of the crowd just spoiled it for me. Screamming to the top of my lungs to be part of the band's FUNKY party, there was no way shaking off the narrowmindness of this Normandy city and just truly enjoy the show.
Turned out I triyed to speak to the couple of CSF guys that came to see Bootsy's perforamnce. Maybe it's me but they shyed away, more absorbed by their phones than meeting the only French guy in the room who had in fact come for them and was surprised to see Bootsy here.
After a morning trying to convince a bunch of facebook addicted students how social network is wasting their time/lives, and the values of real interactions and making actual "friends" in "real life", this was just the last straw.
Not that I spend so many years learning and practising English or IT stuff that my ego got upset by the fact that those skills were clearly useless in my present surrounding. But rather that there was no hope even in stardom. And meeting your dreammakers was just as dry as meeting your butcher, cos' they are people after all and they are just as embarrassed with life as you are. Except they get to do silly stuff in front of a crowd and make money out of it.
But I don't feel like this town is too small for me. Or my ambitions. Same thing when I was a teen. I never thought Pau was too small or downsouth for me. Now I feel like I simply need to find a way to recycle my abilities to make them worth here. In fact, I am responsible for what I do with my life and I am the only master of my level of happiness. This sounds pretty much like "wise". And my young slef would have liked that.
So I won't moan that HH is dead or Caen is too small for me, I will look within find some more ways to know what happiness is to me. Then I can clap along with Pharrell. In my living room.
Outside on the parking lot as I was unlocking my bike to go home after the show, some guy in his 50's passes by, entertaining two younger guys about how Bootsy's voice was not that great, his bass playing was good but not that often and all he had for himself was really his personna.
What about the FUNK ? What about he idea of a party where people come together to listen to crazy good instrumentalists and to shout out tunes they know and love. What about the jam ? What about the music that you deem good enough for you ? (No wait, I don't even want to know!) Where were you in the 70's ? Just too young to live the fun and too old to hope for it ? Now you're just a fucking sad old person with so much wit that you can't even be satisfied by antything but the smell of your own farts. Enjoy.
