A thick breeze blew near the Coca-Cola Stage at Riverbend on Thursday night, partly coming from dreadlocked fans grooving to the gust that was George Clinton.
Mr. Clinton and about 20 musicians from the collective known as Parliament/Funkadelic made a grand entrance about 9:30 p.m., immediately launching into “Bop Gun (Endangered Species).”
From the beginning, it was a standing-room only, get-out-of-your-chair kind of show on the lawn overlooking the Tennessee River.
“He stirs the soul,” said Eric Smith, 40, as he sported his popped collar, Oakley sunglasses and white fedora. “Daily life, work – it wears you down. George brings out the natural rhythm in us.”
If James Brown was funk’s forefather, Mr. Clinton might be considered its crazy uncle sent from outer space, a renaissance man who influenced bands from Red Hot Chili Peppers to Outkast.
“When you’re unique, people follow you,” said a green-eye-shadowed Casan-dra Camp, 19. “It’s a funky disco dance. I haven’t heard anything else like it.”
A diverse crowd illustrated Mr. Clinton’s wide appeal. The lawn paired gray-haired Woodstock veterans with teenagers dressed in long white T-shirts.
“Some groups go toward one group of people,” said Matt Weir, a 26-year-old Bryant, Ala., native. “He doesn’t. He crosses generational boundaries. It’s mellow and chill music, but it can very energetic.”
The 68-year-old Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame member mixed funk, rhythm and blues, rock and elements of early rap over the course of five decades to fuse his band’s namesake genre, P-Funk, according to Rolling Stone magazine archives.
“I haven’t heard anything I didn’t like,” said Jackie McCain, 57, as she waited before the performance on the front row. “When it’s funky and it makes you move, how can you say what’s good and what’s not?”
The band’s performance Thursday evening may have been a tribute to Garry “Diaperman” Shider, one of the band’s many guitarists. Mr. Shider, known for wearing a diaper onstage, died Wednesday after battling brain and lung cancer, according to news reports.
George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic marked Thursday’s Riverbend performance as the middle of a national tour, which concludes July 16 in the band’s home state of New Jersey.
