“S**T, GODDAMN, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND JAM!”
It’s late 1976, and George Clinton’s small army of singers and players, sporting a dazzling array of exotic space costumes and outsize nappies, are on stage thundering through the scorching funkrock hybrid that recently reached an artistic peak on Parliament’s albums Mothership Connection and The Clones Of Dr Funkenstein. Leading the action in a long blond wig, Clinton the cosmic pimp is gesticulating and testifying like a street corner preacher-turned-intergalactic ringmaster, dirtying up nursery rhymes and leading chants of “Shit, goddamn, get off your ass and jam” at the planet’s biggest party, attended by 20,000 guests of all stripes and colours.
The lights dim and Clinton disappears as the incessant groove eases down to a choral singalong ‘Swing down sweet chariot and let me ride’, stoking anticipation for the approaching big moment. Gazing upwards, singer Glenn Goins announces: “I think I hear the mothership coming. I think I see the mothership coming,” as the band stop playing and drop to their knees in genuflection as flashing lights hover over the cavernous arena, and a mini-mothership arcs from the rear of the venue. Then, in a senses-blasting barrage of deafening noise, billowing smoke, shooting sparks and flashing lights, the gargantuan silver mothership descends on to the stage. The crowning moment is its hatch opening to reveal Clinton. Standing regally as Dr Funkenstein, he’s a vision in white with a wig, cane, huge feathered hat and floor-length ermine coat, swaggering and pimp-rolling down the steps from the craft as the band launch into the next call-and-response killer groove…
The mid-70s had seen theatrics in rock balloon into extravagant presentations that, for various reasons, often failed to transcend indulgent novelty status or achieve any desired dramatic effect: the Stones’ giant tulip-todger was poleaxed by poor sound; Bowie’s Hunger City stood cold and imposing as its coked-up single resident; ZZ Top found themselves dwarfed by a Texas-shaped stage being dumped on by perplexed cattle. Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic topped everyone by landing a colossal mothership on arena stages across the US through 1976-77’s P-Funk Earth Tour. This extra-terrestrial mardi gras became one of that decade’s biggest box-office draws and established Parliament-Funkadelic as one of the biggest bands in the US, their riotous funk-rock mutant delivering such an impact on music
