Concerts enliven the July 4 weekend
Hollywood Bowl: Kool & the Gang opens outdoor venue’s summer season
As the bassist in the band, Robert “Kool” Bell usually hangs out toward the back of the stage, and that’s where he was most of the night as Kool & the Gang opened the Hollywood Bowl’s season on Saturday.
But when Bell, who cofounded the band in 1964, did step to the front early in the show, it was to note the significance of live music’s return to this historic venue after more than a year lost to pandemic and quarantines.
“I gotta say, hey, hey, hey!” Bell said with a sly smile to the cheers of about 17,000 fans who packed the amphitheater for the first of two Fourth of July
themed shows with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. “COVID go away, and we want to play.”
And play Kool & the Gang did, delivering a performance that made up for its brevity — the band performed for about an hour — with a set that packed one hit after another into a joyful night under the stars.
It felt a little strange waiting in line to enter the bowl on Saturday night. There were thousands of people and only a few in the face masks that had been ubiquitous since the coronavirus pandemic changed the face of live entertainment in mid-March 2020.
But once inside and the show began, with 30 minutes from conductor Thomas Wilkins and the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, things quickly took a turn for the familiar.
“I have two words to say to you,” Wilkins said after the orchestra’s first number. “Welcome home.”
And then he said a few more: “You look spectacular,” he added. “And didn’t that feel good?”
It did, as you could see and hear in pockets throughout the bowl during the break between the orchestra and Kool & the Gang.
“It’s good to be out again,” my neighbor leaned over to offer.
“It sure is,” I replied. Kool & the Gang’s set list largely built from lesser hits to huge ones. The show opened with “Tonight” followed by “Fresh,” both from the early ’80s renaissance of the band.
“Too Hot” featured saxophonist Dennis “D.T.” Thomas. He, Bell and drummer-keyboardist George “Funky” Brown” are the last original members; the other nine musicians have shorter tenures, though with a band of this vintage that’s relative. Trumpeter Michael Ray has 42 years in the group, while Shawn McQuiller has handled most of the vocals for three decades now.
The show peaked with a four-song run that started with “Jungle Boogie” and flowed into “Hollywood Swinging,” both of them Top 10 songs in the early ’70s and both showing off the funky horn charts that helped the band find its first mainstream success.
“Ladies Night” and “Get Down On It,” also Top 10 hits around the start of the ’80s, wrapped up the main set with most of the fans in the Bowl on their feet to dance and sing along.
The Hollywood Bowl Orchestra returned for a medley of patriotic songs as the traditional Fourth of July fireworks lit the night sky above the band shell for nearly 10 minutes before Kool & the Gang returned to close out the night with “Celebration,” its biggest hit of all.
It’s a song that’s played at weddings and sporting events and parties of all kinds, and it was perfect for this coming-out-of-COVID party at the Bowl on Saturday, too.
“It’s time to come together, it’s up to you, what’s your pleasure?” the lyrics asked at one point.
The chorus then delivered the answer: “Let’s all celebrate and have a good time.”