REVIEW: Living Colour Breathes New Life To 'Vivid' At Park West

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Apr 14, 2013 3:00PM

Photo credit: Chuck Sudo/Chicagoist

Midway through Living Colour’s set at Park West Thursday night guitarist/bandleader Vernon Reid and vocalist Corey Glover had differing accounts on what venue they were playing when they announced their debut album Vivid went platinum. Reid said it was at Metro. Glover (correctly) said it was at the Riviera.

The band then launched into a restrained version of “Broken Hearts” featuring by solos from bassist Doug Wimbish and Reid that showed the songs still stand up as well in a live setting as they do playing Vivid on the stereo a quarter century later.

The band is playing Vivid in its entirety on its current tour. Other musical acts have taken to celebrating hallmark albums in their catalogs by playing them in their entirety on tour, but few albums stand up musically, thematically and sonically today as Vivid and the band didn’t approach this show for pure nostalgia or a quick paycheck. The themes explored on the album such as race, poverty, the artifice of celebrity and the growing class divide in America, are still around today.

Standout tracks from the album — “Cult of Personality,” “Glamour Boys,” “Open Letter to a Landlord” — are still staples of the groups live shows. Thursday night’s show at Park West reminded me of why I went through several copies of Vivid on cassette. From “Cult of Personality” to the closing track, “Which Way to America,” it was a stunning debut album; the first five tracks are about as perfect a sequence of songs you’ll find on an album. The muscular “Middle Man” contains one of Reid’s best riffs, while the proto-thrash intro to “Desperate People” can now be seen as a harbinger for what to expect on the band’s follow-up (and masterpiece), Time’s Up. Other bands would kill to write an infectious piece of power-pop like “I Want to Know” or “Broken Hearts,” the latter showing how integral a component Wimbish’s bass playing has become to the band since he replaced original bassist Muzz Skillings 21 years ago. Wimbish can hold down the rhythm section with drummer Will Calhoun with perfect timing on a churning cover of Talking Heads’ “Memories Can Wait” or step out and play his bass as a lead instrument, similar to John Entwistle or Billy Sheehan.

Reid’s fretwork is still lightning fast after nearly three decades, but his playing on Vivid was easily his most melodic. The funk riffs that informed “Glamour Boys” and “Funny Vibe” are one aspect of Living Colour’s modern musical arsenal that’s sorely missing.

But the star of the show, as he was when Vivid was released in 1988, was Glover. The singer may not be able to fit into his Body Glove suits but he’s lost little of the range and power in his vocals. Glover spent much of the show in his upper registers, squealing and shrieking with ease, while his tenor on “Amazing Grace” leading in to “Open Letter to a Landlord” was muscular and expressive.

After wrapping up their run-through of Vivid, the band paid significant tribute to their 1993 effort Stain with a funky interpretation of “Bi,” a menacing version of “Ignorance is Bliss” and a rocking “Leave it Alone” before ending the show with “Love Rears Its Ugly Head” and the balls-out “Time’s Up.”