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Bernie Worrell & the WOO Warriors
Review 03/13/98 From: Dr.Brookenstein
At Plainfield High School - Plainfield, NJ I would like to say thanks to Richard Panse (pfunk53@aol.com) for driving me to Plainfield, New Jersey, so we can check out Bernie Worrell & The WOO Warriors. The event was a benefit concert for Emmanuel Burris who lost his mother to a tragic shooting. Judie Worrell came out at 8:00pm to announce the importance of this event and introduced everyone to 11-year-old Emmanuel. She is a very beautiful woman who doesn't look a day over 35 years of age!!! (Love ya, Judie!) The first opening act was a group called the Shawn Rivas Trio. The music was basically alternative rock and the performance went from 8:10pm to 8:45pm. The songs that were performed included "Blue Mark", "Bermuda" and a track from a group called Weather Report. I really wasn't impressed by the group. The second opening act was a group called BB & The Stingers, and they performed some blues-rock music, which also didn't really appeal to me. They performed from 9:00pm to 9:40pm. They did a song from Jimi Hendrix's second album, and a song by Robert Johnson (not the guy from the P-Funk Allstars). After that group, a couple of guys came onstage to perform a uplifting hip-hop song for Emmanuel, with parts of Rene & Angela's track "You Don't Have To Cry". The real show began at 10:05pm with Judie Worrell thanking some people who were responsible for putting this event together, and Emmanuel introducing the group Bernie Worrell & The WOO Warriors. First of all, Van Romaine (WOO-regular), Catherine Russell (WOO-regular) and Mike Campbell were not at the show! Michael Rubin took Mike Campbell's place on guitar, and a guy named Lou took over for Van Romaine. B.J. Nelson was present for lead and background vocals, while Donna McPherson was on hand thumping the bass. Greg Fitz was on the right side of the stage on second keys, while Bernie was on the left side. I heard that Catherine Russell was so tied up with many commitments, hence the no-show!!! The track listing: Thank You (For Letting Me Be Myself Again) Red Hot Momma Y-Spy If You Don't Like The Effects, Don't Produce The Cause Fingers Supergroovalisticprosifunkstication Comin' Round The Mountain Baby I Owe You Something Good Can You Get To That? Flashlight/WOO-Lite ENCORE: Night of The Thumpasorus Peoples HIGHLIGHTS: The "If You Don't Like The Effects" song came complete with a sprinkle of "Mary Had a Little Lamb", courtesy of YOU-KNOW-WHO! "Baby I Owe You Something Good" is one of the best songs that Bernie performs live. It's light-years ahead of the Funkadelic studio version. The mandolin part was played by Michael Rubin, using his guitar. What was interesting was that Bernie ended the song by dropping the last 2 words from the final chorus ("Baby I owe you.......") before seguing into "Can You Get To That?", a psychedelic funk jam that had the guys in the audience singing "I WANNA KNOW!" during the chorus!! WOO-Lite is great......"The WOO-funk is your funk, the motherlode of y'all funk!" The show ended early at 11:30pm!! What a wonderful night! So many wonderful things happened: Offering to contribute to the Emmanuel Burris Fund by paying $10.00 for the event and making a 11-year-old boy's life a little better! Meeting Kregg Ajamu, Stozo The Clown, "Joshadelic" & "Winky" (Funk-Kin's manager), after seeing them at FUNK-O-RAMA III. (Are you guys following me around?!) Meeting Judie Worrell in person.....like I said before, Judie is a beautiful woman! Greeting Greg Fitz with the P-Funk sign Sitting across from Bernie backstage and asking him, "Why he never plays 'Cosmic Slop' live?" Bernie replied that he is trying to concentrate more on HIS stuff and not the P-Funk catalog.....of course, I was referring to him modifying his song set a little bit from show to show! Come to think of it, Bernie should probably cut back more on the P-Funk catalog and play stuff from the "Free Agent" album! Sitting in on a heated discussion concerning politics in the music business, the dominant voice being Judie.