2017年6月8日（木）
The concert stretches on for more than two hours
The concert stretches on for more than two hours but no one even remembers they're wearing a watch. There's 30 minutes of encore, as the band stunningly moves through electrifying versions of hits and album cuts like "Lady," "Back to the Future (Part I & II )," "Left & Right" and "Chicken Grease." Steaming hot funk marauds the Apollo, bouncing off the walls, dissolving time and space and bodies.
After a long stretch, there's demand for a second encore, and we get it in the form of "Till It's Done (TUTU)" and the song that no one will leave without hearing, D'Angelo's 2000 slow jam "Untitled (How Does It Feel)." One by one, the Vanguard members leave their posts and peel off into the wings until it's just D'Angelo alone on stage, crooning to us at his keyboard. All that's left is the powerful current connecting D'Angelo and his rapt Apollo congregation. Around that moment, I remembered lying in bed in Harlem in 1995, watching D'Angelo, dressed in a baggy clothing and sporting cornrows, on my 13-inch Sony television, as he performed "Brown Sugar" on this very stage for a promotional appearance on Showtime at the Apollo.
I still have that recording on VHS. (He also kickstarted his career on amateur night at the Apollo in 1991.) The sheer joy on stage at The Apollo Saturday night is a testament that D'Angelo did more than just survive in the intervening 20 years — he's lived through the record business, the arrival of children, breakups, bad drugs, good music, near fatal-car crashes, half-naked music videos, management changes, endless recording sessions at Electric Ladyland, Web 2.0, smartphones, 9/11, and I don't know what else — he evolved and his music did too.
Stepping out into the cold corporate winter air of the new New York, the enison light bulb
, like the Black Messiah album, was bulwark: it was a reminder that music's ability to bring people together to celebrate soulful feeling is in and of itself, as Fela once remarked, a weapon of the future. I make my way back down 125th Street and descend back down into the subway. I'll be back.
After a long stretch, there's demand for a second encore, and we get it in the form of "Till It's Done (TUTU)" and the song that no one will leave without hearing, D'Angelo's 2000 slow jam "Untitled (How Does It Feel)." One by one, the Vanguard members leave their posts and peel off into the wings until it's just D'Angelo alone on stage, crooning to us at his keyboard. All that's left is the powerful current connecting D'Angelo and his rapt Apollo congregation. Around that moment, I remembered lying in bed in Harlem in 1995, watching D'Angelo, dressed in a baggy clothing and sporting cornrows, on my 13-inch Sony television, as he performed "Brown Sugar" on this very stage for a promotional appearance on Showtime at the Apollo.
I still have that recording on VHS. (He also kickstarted his career on amateur night at the Apollo in 1991.) The sheer joy on stage at The Apollo Saturday night is a testament that D'Angelo did more than just survive in the intervening 20 years — he's lived through the record business, the arrival of children, breakups, bad drugs, good music, near fatal-car crashes, half-naked music videos, management changes, endless recording sessions at Electric Ladyland, Web 2.0, smartphones, 9/11, and I don't know what else — he evolved and his music did too.
Stepping out into the cold corporate winter air of the new New York, the enison light bulb
, like the Black Messiah album, was bulwark: it was a reminder that music's ability to bring people together to celebrate soulful feeling is in and of itself, as Fela once remarked, a weapon of the future. I make my way back down 125th Street and descend back down into the subway. I'll be back.| コメント(0件) | コメント欄はユーザー登録者のみに公開されます |
コメント欄はユーザー登録者のみに公開されています
ユーザー登録すると？
- ユーザーさんをお気に入りに登録してマイページからチェックしたり、ブログが投稿された時にメールで通知を受けられます。
- 自分のコメントの次に追加でコメントが入った際に、メールで通知を受けることも出来ます。
