November 17, 1998
London Brixton Academy
He lurches into [B]'It Ain't Over Til It's Over'[/B], the only genuinely decent song he's ever penned, ensuring that the latter part of tonight will be endless, abject torture...
Patience folks; he'll be here soon. Lenny Kravitz is an hour late, but for a man who has not played a live show in these parts for four years, timekeeping is not a priority.
That's the 'treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen' school of showbiz to which the svelte Kravitz clearly subscribes, though. Amazing then, that when he does deign to turn up, he blows his cool within three songs. After just a couple of computer-designed, noodly faux-Funkadelic jams, he lurches into 'It Ain't Over Til It's Over', the only genuinely decent song he's ever penned, ensuring that the latter part of tonight will be endless, abject torture. He might have shorn off the dreadlocks, but no amount of PARLIAMENT posturing and exaggerated JAMES BROWN muscle jerks can endow him with the 'Supersoul' he so desperately aspires to. The bludgeoning pomp-funk of 'Mama Said' is still the epitome of the music you hear drifting out of Audi Quattro windows in rush-hour traffic, and no amount of funky '70s clobber can prevent this being soul for the soulless.
Midway through the set, Kravitz begins a bizarre meander about the "beauty of this thing we call life" and the need to create some "positive vibrations" in London tonight. That deep grinding vibration, meanwhile, was the sound of MARVIN GAYE turning in his grave.
10
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