Terrific performance last night by Kip Blackshire at the Jazz Cafe in Camden, London.

Two members of Maceo Parker's band were there - guitarist and drummer. I was at the bar before the gig started and Maceo's guitarist chatted to me.

Prince fans were definitely in the house, everytime a Prince tune got played people went wild. Lots of Prince t-shirts and hats were on show.

Before Kip came out, the DJ was playing some Prince tracks, including 3121 stuff like Black Sweat, and a couple of others I hadn't heard before. He also played The Work off of TRC (I think Kip did backing vocals on it).

The gig was great - Kip has great charisma as a performer and he got a good atmosphere worked up in the crowd.

Damn funky band. As well as doing some Kip original material, they did real-funky cover versions of Superstitious (by Stevie W.), Everyday People (better than the version on the Rave DVD), Hey Joe (Jimi H.) but one of the highlights was a medley of Prince songs Kip playing piano and the rest of the band jamming alongside him - including Controversy, Wanna Be Ur Lover, Uptown. Thought it was kind of cool of Kip to not mention Prince all night, and just play some of his stuff like that. More subtle than if he'd just got up there and started talking about how he used to jam with Prince.

Halfway through the show, he called up Maceo's guitarist to jam through a song with him as replacement for his regular guitarist.

Performance showed off Kip's multi-talented skills - piano, covers, originals, guitar, ballads, it was all there.

Great performance.

Thanx for sharing

You know it's a good performance when you simply have to dance, and you just can't help it. By the end, I think everyone in the house had that feeling. It was so damn funky, especially Maceo's guitarist, he brought the house down with his 5 minute funky guitar solo, during an extended ten minute jam with Kip.

They also did that psych-ending stuff like at the end of the LP version of the Everlasting Now (off TRC).

"On tha 1.....! Psych!" then the jam continued, did this about 9-10 times for one jam!

I wish I could have been there

A few months I ago I saw Maceo playing in Rotterdam, funky as ever