Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Kino Šiška / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 24.11.2009
Attendance: 600
Ticket price: €25.00
Living Colour in Ljubljana. For the third time in their career! And the fifth time in Slovenia overall! This September the band released a fresh studio album, “The Chair In The Doorway” (2009, Megaforce Records) – RockLine review HERE. The band is tied to this corner of Europe almost by tradition, so you don’t have to “hunt” them down across the vast latitudes and longitudes of the old continent to enjoy their shows. At least one of them, if I may be a little wicked.
The band is back on tour together! Brimming with freshness, rested, deeply inspired. So what could have caused that? Simply the fact that the members of Living Colour, William E. Calhoun (drums), Doug Wimbish (bass), Corey Glover (vocals) and Vernon Reid (guitar), are everything under the sun when they’re not Livin g Colour. They play in countless “jam” projects that know no limits in expressing art through music. So whenever Living Colour get together, you can feel incredible cohesion and a drive pushing them forward, plus a sense that they’re only at the start of their career, because their “youthful” nature gives no impression whatsoever that these are mature men who are now some kind of gurus, musical sages.
“The Chair in The Doorway” is a great new album: relaxed, playful, tremendously fun. Living Colour approached it in a completely different light when they put it on tape, compared to the vibe of its older brother “Collideoscope” (2003), which was made during harder times for the band. They’re hugely excited about the new studio effort and enjoy playing it live like crazy. The 6 songs they put in the set for their latest visit to Ljubljana are proof of that.
Before the first fiddle of funk metal fusion in the world took the stage, The Cancel and Ego Malfunction warmed up the crowd in the hall. If the first act gathered about 20 lonely souls around them, the set by the reborn Ego Malfunction, who are enjoying a new bloom with singer Saša, stirred up far more interest. Excellent, full funk rhythms that held the audience firmly, and especially the “dangerous” Saša, who proves what the right vocalist can bring to a band’s musical concept. As if a Black soul singer were trapped inside her. Fantastic vocals, fantastic stage presence. A perfect lottery win, and let’s hope Ego Malfunction put out their new album as soon as possible with the same energy they showed at Kino Šiška! You’d honestly be hard-pressed to find a better opener for Living Colour in Slovenia than Ego Malfunction. Maybe BHC?
Showtime. A little after ten in the evening, silhouettes appear, the hall greets them with a roar, and the band hits us with proven old hits. The hall takes over Middle Man, too, boiling over warmly beneath the stage, and the party begins. The in-great-spirits foursome came to reward the audience all the way. They stayed with “Vivid” (1988) and the classic Desperate People follows, confirming that Living Colour are seriously loud tonight at Kino Šiška, so only the toughest “cooked” right under the stage, while the other “smart” ones measured out a few solid meters from the stage, where the sound was better during the show.
Already last year at Cvetličarna Living Colour showed during their set just how devilishly well-oiled the band is, but this time the ambience in which they were received was incomparable. A spacious, wide stage. Reid was jumping around like a madman through the first three songs and almost flew off the edge of the stage as he tore through the meat of his “poisonous” solos. A new Parker guitar (“Fly DeLuxe” signature) has replaced the famous colorful “Hamer”.
The set continues with the new album, whose songs prove how well they work alongside the older material. If Bles Those shows the band’s hugely witty side, highlighting how great Wimbish and Reid are together in the verse, then the metallically heavier-rolling new track Decadence reflects the dark side, showing the rebellious teeth with which Living Colour knew how to bite, and still bite firmly today. Young Man also lands especially well, with an excellent combination of dance rhythm in the verse and a devilish transition into a furiously chopping, darkness-filled chorus. Behind the Sun, with its light playfulness, relieves the weight of the rest of the material with which Living Colour kept us standing upright yesterday. As said, the new album is a truly strong new expressive moment in the band’s musical evolution, and its live performance confirms it in every way.
Big projections in the background added fuel to the fire of the extraordinary rhythmic cohesion, the incredible combinatorics stemming from pure jazz school, the feeling for spontaneous play, the feeling that at times even Living Colour don’t know a moment ahead how the piece they’re playing will turn out and where it will carry them. The guys seem to be in a trance. The chemistry is incredible. It’s hard to follow them, and the best thing is to simply surrender to the magic. Corey is still in perfect shape on vocals. Over the years he’s calmed down his stage movement a little, but the voice and delivery are what make him truly one of the strongest stage “frontmen”, whose charisma never runs out. The same goes for all four of them. Vernon was the first to step into the spotlight in Flying (“Collideoscope”, 2003), where he allowed himself a wild solo adventure and stretched the track out by a good dozen minutes. Doug Wimbish did something similar next, when he “crashed” into the shrill sound of soloing on his bass in the second half of Bi (“Stain”, 1993). To the audience’s delight, Wimbish jumped off the stage among the people and played a truly mile-long solo that just wouldn’t end. Maestro William E. Calhoun then staged a real showtime with a 15-minute drum solo, which was once again a chapter in itself. Just that moment when Will starts his solo is reason enough to go see a Living Colour show. Total madness.
The manipulation of sound is captivating, which was always the band’s trademark and made them hugely appealing. If in 1993 at Hala Tivoli Vernon’s guitar sounded like a saxophone when he soloed, today Vernon can choose from a plethora of sounds that he combines. All three complement each other in this: Calhoun, Wimbish and Reid. And that brings an extra kick to the band’s concerts, which attracts fans of their music. Interestingly, Calhoun often “wrecks the rhythm” through improvisation in the verses, while he plays the transitions almost trivially. Exactly the opposite of what you’d expect. Yet the song’s expression stays compact throughout.
People really loosened up when the band continued with Glamour Boys and the front rows bounced along with the band, especially in the chorus. The new song Bless Those landed great, offering an identical picture of band-audience interplay. The intense finish naturally belonged to the classics again. A moment of big fun came with the “Time’s Up” classic Elvis Is Dead, which the band also played in Ljubljana back in 1993. Back then the band was presenting the album “Stain” around the world, and interestingly, the set at Kino Šiška included as many as four songs from it, which amplified some feelings of nostalgia. On that beautiful long-ago day, 23.06.1993, Corey bounced around the stage at Tivoli in the jersey of the Slovenian national hockey team, and Reid theatrically staged a proper stage dive.
Of course it can’t go without Cult Of Personality, which wakes up even the “laziest” visitors at the back of the hall. After loud ovations the guys return and play a “filed-down” In Bloom, a cover of Nirvana. That was direct proof of how even Nirvana can be made listenable. The feeling was like switching from a clunker to a Ferrari Testarossa, or like the Indian Taj Mahal growing out of a garbage dumpster.
After the show the band members lined up at the official merchandise stand, signing autographs, taking photos with fans and chatting a bit. Another thoroughly intense concert night at Kino Šiška, which proved once again that Living Colour remain an elusive musical entity, worthy of all admiration in the creation of their unique musical world.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
*You can read the interview with Living Colour drummer William E. Calhoun for RockLine, conducted before the band’s show in Ljubljana on 24.11.2009, HERE.
Setlist
1. Middle Man 2. Desperate People 3. Auslander 4. Ignorance Is Bliss 5. Burned Bridges 6. The Chair 7. Decadance 8. Go Away 9. Flying 10. Bi 11. Drum solo 12. Glamour Boys 13. Young Man 14. Behind The Sun 15. Bless Those 16. Elvis Is Dead 17. Type 18. Cult Of Personality —encore— 19. In Bloom (Nirvana cover)
Photo gallery
