If the new Antone’s wasn’t broken in yet, it sure is now. The reborn venue on Fifth Street was at capacity (400) a full half-hour prior to George Clinton & Parliament-Funkadelic’s scheduled 8pm set time on Friday. A line of those hoping to get in snaked around the building.
One of the best parts of SXSW is the chance to see big names in small venues, and this was certainly that. The sheer volume of acts at the festival, however, necessitates short sets, so it proved refreshing to settle in for the night as the legendary funk clan stretched out for nearly three hours of deep grooves and barely controlled chaos.
There were upwards of 18 people onstage at any given time, only half of whom were playing instruments. Not many aside from Dr. Funkenstein himself were part of the P-Funk heyday, but dueling psychedelic guitarists DeWayne “Blackbyrd” McKnight and Ricky Rouse have a combined 60 years aboard the mothership. The pair turned “Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker)” into a swirling odyssey and captained the 1973 space funk of “Cosmic Slop.”
For his part, Clinton presided over the epic jam session in a fedora and floral button-up (long gone are the rainbow dreads), taking center stage on classic party anthems “Flashlight,” “Bop Gun (Endangered Species),” “Up For the Down Stroke,” and “Atomic Dog,” and only occasionally ceding to the newbies for extended raps and one unfortunate hardcore punk song. Band members wandered on and off stage, Sir Nose D’voidoffunk gyrated a combination strip tease and gymnastics routine, and the loose groove never stopped. It was a big, beautiful mess.
Indeed, cosmic slop.
This article appears in March 18 • 2016.
