Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 3, 1973)
in concert Rapping about life, being funny as hell The first time I saw Bill Cosby was at Mac Court, and I was 12 years old and didn’t stop laughing throughout his performance. The second time I saw him was also at Mac Court and it was also one of the most entertaining evenings I had spent in a long time. Following the third time I saw Cosby, which was last Friday night as part of the “Segments of Black-Culture” festival, I reached the following conclusion: Bill Cosby is a funny man. Ricocheting from his years of puberty, to his early childhood, to his first driving test, Cosby kept the sound of 3,000 people laughing their heads off echoing through Mac Court. Though his jokes themselves were new and humorous, it was the Cosby style that transcended the evening. He could shift from Bill Cosby, to his old science teacher, to his father, to Bill Cosby as a boy. With the lift of an eyebrow he could set off waves of laughter. Using the microphone he could simulate sound Bill Cosby Photo by Linnet Meyers effects from his friend’s car which had an airplane engine and the reactions of the poor police officer who had to give him his driving test in it. Cosby is the officer now: tongue hanging out, eyes bulged, his body shaking like he plugged himself into a socket. The car stops. “What is this,” The officer cries, “an airplane?” Cosby is then back to Bill taking the driving test. He slowly turns his head and his expression — you’ve got to get his face — is surprised indignation. “Yeah,” Cosby says£ Without the Cosby timing and style, this joke would fall flat. But he was able to bring the house down with it. (Cosby passes the driving test, giving him a “license to kill anyone vertical.”) Walking on stage in tennis shoes, wearing glasses, and sporting a mustache, Cosby sat down, faced the throngs of people, and said, “I really hadn’t planned anything.” And I really don’t think he had. During his per formance he would occasionally stop and think of where he was planning to go next. Sometimes he would say he was going to talk about one thing and wind up discussing something entirely different. But his non-preparedness didn’t detract from his performance. In fact, I think it added immensely to it. Cosby was just sitting up there rapping away about his life in hard times, and being just funny as hell. I think part of the reason Cosby seemed so funny was that the segments of his life that he picked to joke about were areas most anyone relates to. Bringing the car home late, losing a girl friend, falling in love — they’re all places we’ve been before. The audience could em pathize and relate to what Cosby was laughing at. Through him we could laugh at ourselves. In some ways, Cosby has not changed over the years, and, in some ways, he has come a long, long way from Fat Albert. Some of his humor people might con sider off-color, but I think that this type of humor was still very good, simply because it fit so well into our own lives. (Talking about puberty Cosby says, “Puberty attacked me in one night. I didn’t know what happened, but I knew it was wonderful.”) Characterization was where Cosby was at his best. Rivaling the characters that he portrayed other than himself were the amazingly diverse characters inside Cosby — “the bunch of people in your brain who talk to you.” (Cosby is asked by his science teacher about something he had not read the night before. He starts asking all the people in his brain what they have written down in their little books. “Nothing here,” they say. “So out stepped the man with the white hat, the purple suit, and the orange tie to save the day. He’s the man in charge of the B.S.”) Appearing with Cosby was the Pair Extraordinaire who considered themselves “a cross between B.B. King and Ricky Nelson.” They provided a mixture of folk and blues with light comedy, putting the icing on the cake of the evening’s show. At the end of the evening, Cosby switched from humor to give a brief talk on what the “Segments of Black Culture” week had been about. “What we have tried to show,” Cosby said, “is that the Black people really have something to add to America. “We’re not foreigners, and we’re no different from anyone else,” Cosby said. “If we’re refused, we want to be refused because we can’t do something, and not because we’re different.” Cosby wasn’t refused last Friday night. Simply, he was brilliant. And all the people who saw him left Mac Court with a little bit of Cosby inside. Peter Grant Ail experience’ Chambers Brothers Photo by Steve Van Brasch A concert is a concert is a concert. Except by the Chambers Brothers. Something happened at the Lane County Fairgrounds Sunday night called, “If Loving You Is Wrong, I Don’t Want To Be Right.” It turned a concert into an experience. The song was a musical movement unparalleled in my experience in listening to concerts (admittedly not the most ex tensive, but then again, not exactly nil). I find it very hard to describe the second half of the Chambers Brothers set. Words fail me — I can’t think of artsy, cutesy phrases and little reviewing innuendos and tricks of writing as I could for the warm-up group, the Rowan Brothers — more on that later. The crowd wasn’t restless, and there wasn’t a frenzy of boogieing. The crowd seemed awed — at least I was. The Brothers did “If Loving You Is Wrong” in a style somewhat reminiscent of the Vanilla Fudge’s old rendition of “You keep me hanging on.” They held nothing back. It seemed as if there was no way they could give any more. j It was powerful, it was exciting. It was the most awesome piece of music I have' ever heard performed on stage. The chords seemed to rip into me, the power numbing me until my body didn’t twitch — my eyes didn’t move off those figures on the stage. And I stood numbed, dumb struck, as the lead singers’ tears (real live water) stained the stage. After that song, the rest of the concert was almost an afterthought. The Brothers put their guitars on and played “The Time It Is Today” as a finale, a driving, simple song. I should have been moved, I should have boogied. But all I could think of was that fifteen minute musical experience. The rest of the Chambers’ concert was just fine. They have a rather sophisticated manner of molding rock, soul and the blues to suit their mood, as in a good driving boogie, “Bang-Bang,” and then settling down into a little delta blues with a soft “People Get Ready — There’s a Train A Coming.” They managed to keep their versatility and still stay away from sounding pedantic. I can’t say the same for the Rowan Brothers. Just as the Chambers Brothers awed me, the Rowan Brothers bored me. The people near me and I spent most of their set thinking up cute detracting phrases about them and their music. It wasn’t that it was all that bad — the musician? were competent, their tunes fairly catchy, their stage presence presentable. It’s just that they lacked style. If you’ve ever seen a person listen to a song and act like they were playing guitar and singing, you’ve got a fair idea of what the Rowan Brothers looked (and perhaps sounded) like. Put your favorite tune on the stereo some time, then stand in front of a mirror and play rock star — you’ll get the idea. They spent their time sounding like rock stars, too — like the Everly Brothers, then early Springfield, a little imitation of Sly’s “I Want To Take You Higher,” a Bowie like space trip. They reminded me of two walking, talking AM radios with legs. They were trying so hard, and doing all the right things. It was as if David Cassidy had decided to clone himself and learn to play guitar. The people around me had the same reactions. “They’re so cute I just want to pinch their cheeks.” (I pinched mine together, but it was more of a reaction to the music rather than their looks). “Gee, I bet only their hairdresser knows for sure.” (They wore matching shag haircuts). “If I was 14,1 could really dig on it.” A few people started to twist — another said, “TTiey wanted to boogie, I wanted to boogie — but I couldn’t, they wouldn’t let me.” It wasn’t so much that the music was so bad, it was that it was so sweet. One of the Rowans groaned into the mike before their last number, “We’re gonna get dirty — dirty.” They proceeded to sing, “Yabadabadobadayabadabada. ” Definitely not a family act. Scott Spittal
