When Living Colour’s debut album Vivid blew up in early 1989, I was a 12 year old kid living in an all-black part of Brooklyn. At my junior high school, all the cool kids were either listening to hip-hop or new jack swing. As much as revisionist history may say otherwise, even Prince and Michael Jackson were considered wack by a lot of urban youth culture at this point. Rock & roll? Out of the question. Hell, even in my own home, hard rock was considered “crazy white people music” and that prejudice carried over to me, even though I bobbed my head to the odd Def Leppard or Poison song that came on Z-100.
Living Colour took that perception, smashed it to bits, added teeming doses of instrumental virtuosity, and proved to me that it wasn’t wrong for a brotha to appreciate (or enjoy, or duh…play) harder strains of rock. Although I can’t necessarily say that LC was “‘hood approved,” they were respected enough to get coverage in rags like Black Beat and Right On! (which catered primarily to teenage soul and rap fans) and the “Cult Of Personality” and “Open Letter (To A Landlord)” videos got play on legendary local show Video Music Box (whose host, Ralph McDaniels, was great at spooning you music by artists who were slightly outside his audience’s comfort zone.) Although I wouldn’t learn it until chatting with him after a show over a decade later, lead guitarist/founder Vernon Reid grew up in virtually the same neighborhood as me, maybe a 15 minute walk from my house.
Fast forward about two years. I’ve got a summer job and a little bit of cash in my pocket for the first thing. One of the first things I do is sign up for Columbia House and order a ton of tapes. Living Colour’s second album, Time’s Up, was on that list alongside LL Cool J’s Mama Said Knock You Out and a few others. I’m mesmerized by the breadth of musical styles on that album. Time’s Up’s four singles-“Type”, “Elvis Is Dead”, “Love Rears Its Ugly Head” and “Solace Of You”-could have come from four completely different bands. It’s a testament to Living Colour’s talent that they made it all cohesive. Another two years later, the band blessed us with Stain, a masterful effort that might have been a little too left for the masses, even though it introduced master bassist Doug Wimbish and contained some of Living Colour’s best material. Certainly “Bi,” a tongue-in-cheek look at queerdom, resonated with my gradually-coming-out self. The band split up less than two years after that: aborting sessions for a fourth album and not reuniting until 2000.
I’m a couple years too young to have seen Living Colour at their commercial peak, but I have been fortunate enough to see them three times in the past decade or so. The first show was actually a solo Vernon Reid show in New York, where Corey joined Vernon on stage for a handful of songs. The second show was at a small club in Boston, which afforded me a chance to see the band intimately even as I wondered why they didn’t book a bigger room. The third show was last night. All three shows were masterful. Last night’s show transcended “masterful” and was damn near a religious experience.
In light of current events, Living Colour’s highly political lyrical content had more resonance than usual. The band members played songs like “Wall” and “Type” with a passion that bands half their age would find it difficult to muster. While Calhoun busied himself behind the kit, Wimbish (a product of nearby Hartford) nailed all the rock star moves, even playing the bass with his teeth during a solo segment. Reid was loose and jocular, chatting with the crowd and emanating downtown cool/Brooklyn cool/West Indian cool, while Glover paced the stage like a man about to explode. The BodyGlove lycra suit days may be over, but Corey remains one of music’s most mercurial¹ and passionate frontmen. Not to mention, the guy has better pipes than 99.99% of singers working today. One would not be mad at Corey for losing a step vocally after nearly three decades. After all, dude shreds his throat nightly. However, the man unleashed a full arsenal of grunts, shouts, exhortations and banshee wails on the audience. He also sang/rapped a stunning metal cover of The Notorious B.I.G.’s “Who Shot Ya?” (Brooklyn recognize Brooklyn) and led the crowd in a brief recitation of the now-familiar “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” refrain, one of many nods to the events still simmering in Missouri.
The show’s highlight was unquestionably a version of “Open Letter (To A Landlord)” for which “passionate” seems way too soft a word to describe. I say this as something of a humble brag-I’ve been to probably 500 shows in the past 20 years. I’ve seen some of the masters of the game-Prince, Robert Plant, Bad Brains, Rod Stewart, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, Stevie Nicks, Kanye twice, The Police, Stevie twice. This performance might have been the single most transcendent ten minutes I’ve ever witnessed at a concert. For ten minutes, the Paradise Rock Club morphed into a storefront church and Reverend Corey Glover preached. I don’t consider myself a particularly religious person, but if Corey decided to start a congregation right after that performance, I’d have been at the head of the flock. Not to sound faux-mystical or hippie-ish, but that performance changed my molecular structure, it was that powerful.
Some bands make great music, some bands have cultural relevance. A few bands make great music, and have great cultural and personal relevance. Corey, Vernon, Will and Doug check all three boxes in my book, and have done so since I was in 8th grade². I do a lot of second-guessing about devoting my professional and personal life to music, but this band (and this show) serves as a good reminder of how powerful music (their music, not to mention music in general) has been in my life. After the show, I did something I rarely do and stuck around the venue to shake the band members’ hands and thank them. I didn’t want autographs or photos. I wanted to show appreciation for two hours of temporary deliverance from a maddening week and twenty-five years of deliverance from a maddening world. It was the least I could do.
Is it hyperbole to say that last night’s show was the best concert I’ve ever attended? Maybe. But it’s at least top 5. Holy crap. I’m moved to tears just thinking about that “Open Letter” performance. I was hoping that someone uploaded it to YouTube, but I don’t think it’s there yet. This isn’t much of a step down, but here’s a similar performance from a New York show.
¹-I got a chuckle when an audience member screamed “Corey, I love you!” The singer responded “I don’t know you.” The only other artist I’ve ever heard respond with those words? Meshell Ndegeocello, who’s a spiritual and musical sister to Living Colour in myriad ways.
²-Someone’s gonna vote these guys into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the next five or so years, right?