Living Colour was formed in New York City in 1984 by British-born guitarist Vernon Reid, developed a strong following on the local music scene, particularly at CBGB’s, and broke internationally with its debut album Vivid in 1988. At the peak of its popularity, Living Colour was named Best New Artist at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards, the song "Cult of Personality" won a 1990 Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance and the band performed before huge audiences as the opening act on a Rolling Stones tour. Shortly thereafter, Living Colour faded from the limelight, splitting apart and reuniting several times.
Celebrating the 25th anniversary of Vivid with a concert at Irving Plaza tonight, Living Colour demonstrated why its wide commercial success was limited to a brief time period – the band is far from a standard hard rock band – and why its music is way too super-creative for the masses. At its core, the band is a hard rock band, with Reid playing sizzling guitar leads on most songs. Corey Glover, now gray-haired and without the long locks he swung in the band’s earlier videos, is still a soulful singer. With the strong rhythm section of bassist Doug Winbush and drummer Will Calhoun, the band stretched beyond hard rock with a challenging fusion influenced by free jazz, funk, hip hop, punk rock and heavy metal. Even more dynamic than the music, however, were the lyrics collected from several of the band’s albums; these lyrics explored human behavior in a time of gentrification of neighborhoods, Eurocentrism, racism, bisexuality and yes, the cult of personality. During the encores, Living Colour introduced members of the Sugar Hill Gang and Grandmaster Flash’s Furious Five for a few minutes of vintage rap. What can we do to keep Living Colour alive and challenging us further?
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