I saw Morris Day and The Time last night at the Boulder Station Casino.

I know the first thing you are going to ask.

Did I do The Bird?

Oh Yes …. Yes I did do The Bird.

I arrived at Boulder Station an hour and a half before showtime and the lady showed me the available seats. The had only a couple left in the most expensive section, so of course I got those.

I also got a free $10 meal with the Boarding Pass and won $20 in Video Poker while waiting, so the third row seats really only set me back about $20.

Why everyone doesn’t live in this town, I’ll never figure out.

I walked into The Railhead venue at about 15 minutes to 8, and was stunned by how good these seats were. Third row center, about 8 feet from the center mic stand.

I started to get worried that the show would start very late when the techs came out and started taping the set lists to the floor at 8:05pm (they must have made some last minute changes to the set), but 5 minutes later the lights went down, and from the speakers boomed the famous “WHAT TIME IS IT??????!!!!!!!!!!”.

The band came out first with a little build-up instrumental, and then the Minneapolis Pimp Daddy came out himself. At this point, the crowd jumped out of their seats and erupted into applause. Not to be a seat-snob, but I couldn’t really see what most of them were doing the rest of the show since 99% of them were behind me (okay, I am being a seat snob).

The band immediately launched into a string of hits “Get It Up”, “Wild and Loose”, “Cool”, and most of the people in my section seemed to be having a great time and were singing along to every word. I didn’t know the words verbatim like they did, so I pretended. This is not the genre of music I typically listen to, but with the exception of some groups that I personally can’t stand, I like to see entertainers perform live, regardless of genre’.

Of course, there was a patch of the audience made up mostly of older white folks who had no idea who this band was. You know, the comped ticket cotton-heads. They seemed confused. But that made it more fun.

Morris is (obviously) 20 years removed from his heyday, but he is still the consummate entertainer. Is he the best singer on the planet? No, not even close. The best dancer? Again, no. But he knows how to really entertain a crowd, and that is the only thing that matters. He had most of the audience out of their seats and screaming out of their heads.

Even if you don’t dig the style of music, it’s nearly impossible not to enjoy a Morris Day and The Time show.

He has perfected the “goofy conceited musical pimp” character, and uses it flawlessly throughout the show. After all, that’s what we were there to see. The band doesn’t take themselves seriously, and it is apparent the only reason they are onstage is to have a good time and make the audience have a good time.

Morris took several of his patented mirror breaks, ran the comb through his hair, and made sure his eyebrows were straight.

Morris and The Time were very interactive with the audience, bringing scores of people onstage. Especially females. The ass-shaking contest was pretty damn funny and the whole band couldn’t stop laughing as the women tried their best to win the crowd over by making their asses dance to the music. At the end of the contest, he said …. what else … “Ya’ll don’t have to go home, but you got to get the hell off my stage!”

Then they fired into their biggest hits “The Bird”, “Oak Tree”, and did one encore … the venerable “Jungle Love”.

The show was infectuous. Morris was on point, the whole band was tighter than a frog’s twat, and I could only imagine what it must have been like 20+ years ago in some Minnesota club watching this new band funk the stage up.

Just non-stop fun and energy from beginning to end.

It must be noted that there are only three original band members remaining. But this is to be expected when a band’s members reach their 50’s. Morris, Jellybean Johnson (drums), and Monte Moir (keyboard) are the only remaining members from the 1980’s era.

Of course, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis moved on to produce Janet Jackson and others, and the “real” Jerome was notably absent, replaced by two other “Jerome-like” dudes … but they pulled it off.

Stanley “Chance” Howard was on keyboards (who you may know from Prince’s “Musicology” lineup), Torrell “Tori” Ruffin was on guitar, and Ricky “Freeze” Smith was on bass. They smiled, jammed, and strutted throughout the show, and were bona-fide “Time” members with perfection at their given instruments and attitude.

As the saying goes … a good time was had by all.

Now, of course, nothing ever and I mean EVER goes off without a hitch.

After the show was over, some members of the band stuck around to talk with the audience. I went over to speak with Tori Ruffin about some great guitar riffs he had done, when this heavy-set black lady basically knocks me out of the way, and starts scolding Ruffin. “This was terrible! Just terrible! There was no Jerome up there, all you had was some damn asian boy! You should be ashamed!”

Did I mention that one of the two “Jerome’s” was an asian dude? If I didn’t, it was because it didn’t seem terribly relevant. But this lady was more pissed off than a Frenchman in the deodorant isle of a drugstore.

Ruffin just said “Okay, alright, sorry”. But I didn’t understand her. She was doing the head-rolling finger-waving thing, and earned the right to be called a first rate Nappy Headed Hobag.

Can you imagine if I went to a Celine Dion concert, ran up to the stage, and started yelling and screaming at the performers for having a black backup dancer?

We all know that I would be worked over in the back room by security, banned from the casino, and a bootleg video of my outburst would be in heavy rotation on the nightly news, and Al and Jesse would want to start a “national dialog” about it.

Luckily nobody paid much attention to this bitch, and Ruffin continued to greet folks by the stage.

The bottom line is this, even if you don’t like 80’s funk, this is still a great band to see live. They have energy, stage presence, musicianship, and a silly vibe that wins over even the most pretentious assholes with sticks up their chutes.

If you get a chance to see Morris and The Time, then by all means, do so.  Like Morris says “Let your body get loose, you ain’t too fat to fly!”  *Not applicable to Rosie O’Donnel

This band is great. If you don’t believe me, just ask Jay and Silent Bob: