Stormy Mondays | Soulive Revue 2002 In Buffalo

Soulive finished up their annual Bowlive festivities at the Brooklyn Bowl over the weekend, having welcomed a wide range of guests each night. In many ways, celebrating that diversity of styles, friends and influences has always been of interest to the trio, and this week we’re going to listen to one of their first gestures in that direction.

Back in the late winter and early spring of 2002, Soulive embarked on a tour that featured almost no variation in setlist from night to night, something that understandably upset many fans at the time. But what the group was really doing was enacting a Soulive Review that would begin to address the possible scope of the band, starting out as a trio for “Steppin’,” adding the great Sam Kininger shortly thereafter, then Ryan Zoidis and Josh Roseman for a full horns section. Later still they would invite N’ambi out to sing “Romantic,” a tune they debuted and recorded with Goapele before finishing the set with “Tuesday Night Squad.” For an encore they would invite Shuman, Mister Rourke and N’Dambi up for “Sex Machine > I Don’t Know What You Came to Do.”

I went back and looked at my review of the Apollo show from that tour and I was skeptical of the lack of variation at the time, but also came to see what they were after by the end of the show. All these years later, I appreciate it so much more, especially when listening to the Buffalo show from which we have killer versions of “Steppin’,” “Cannonball,” “Romantic” and “Sex Machine” > “I Don’t Know.” As always, enjoy!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THIS WEEK’S MIX

Written By: Dan Alford