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Music

Hot Tickets: Calling all funk masters

There ain't no party like a P-Funk party 'cause a P-Funk party don't stop.

By SEAN DALY and JOHN FLEMING
Published December 15, 2005

Literally.

You haven't lived (and danced and sweated and sucked wind and curled up in the fetal position) until you've survived a four-hour funkathon with George Clinton and his Mothership full of P-Funk All-Stars. Last year in Washington, D.C., I attended my first P-Funk bacchanal, and it's no exaggeration to say the experience changed my life. Or, at the very least, knocked a few years off it.

First, Chuck "Bustin' Loose" Brown, the Godfather of Go-Go, opened the show. So I was heaving for oxygen before the headliners even took the stage. Then P-Funk's second-in-command, Gary "Starchild" Shider - wearing nothing but a diaper, mind you - led a football-team's worth of dancing musicians, writhing cheerleaders and that ne'er-do-well character Sir Nose onstage. "This is gonna be a long one tonight," Starchild warned, almost as if he were delivering bad news. "We're gonna party like it's 1979."

The berobed Clinton, with his wild geyser of rainbow-ribboned hair, wouldn't show for another 20 minutes. Of course, I'm fairly certain the band was still on the first song when the 60-something legend finally bopped onboard. "You gotta pace yourself!" Clinton growled to the youngsters who were dancing hard to such grooving goodness as Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof Off), One Nation Under a Groove, Flashlight and Atomic Dog ("Bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yay!").

Sad to say, not many of the tuckered kids made it until the 2:26 a.m. finish. But there were a few maniacs who craved more. Clinton probably would have kept going, too. But reasonable heads - actually the guy in the diaper - finally pulled the Master of Funk off the stage.

Consider yourself warned.

George Clinton and members of P-Funk play at 7 p.m. Friday at Jannus Landing, 16 Second St. N, St. Petersburg. $9.99 advance, $15 day of show. (727) 896-2276.

- SEAN DALY, Times pop music critic

The Florida Orchestra's Beethoven cycle continues this weekend with the Ninth Symphony, Stefan Sanderling conducting. For spiritual uplift, this capstone of Beethoven's symphonic output can be a powerful experience, a more than hourlong journey from "darkness to light," in the words of program annotator Michael Steinberg. The Master Chorale and soloists - Lauren Whalen, soprano; Jennifer Roderer, mezzo-soprano; Thomas Studebaker, tenor; and Thomas Potter, bass - sing the finale's Ode to Joy. Performances are Saturday at Pasadena Community Church, St. Petersburg; Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater; and Monday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa, all at 7:30 p.m. $15.50-$50.50. 813 286-2403 or toll-free 1-800-662-7286; www.floridaorchestra.org

- JOHN FLEMING, Times performing arts critic

[Last modified December 14, 2005, 11:41:06]