Tower Of Power 50 Years Of Funk & Soul: Live At The Fox Theater - Oakland, CA - June 2018 3LP

Over the course of two memorable evenings in June 2018, legendary soul-funk-R&B outfit Tower of Power returned to Oakland, the city that started it all, to celebrate its landmark 50th anniversary with a few thousand friends, family and fans. The window-rattling grooves and raucous party spirit of ToP has been a balm for the soul throughout the band's half-century existence, but the release of 50 Years of Funk & Soul: Live at the Fox Theater - Oakland, CA - June 2018 couldn't have come at a better time.

This high-spirited live album and video offers a reminder of the communal joys of the live music experience, something that's been sorely missed over this staggering pandemic year. Released as a 3-LP set, 50 Years of Funk & Soul is the next best thing to hearing these brilliant musicians in person. Fittingly for such a special occasion, Tower of Power went all out for these hometown shows, supplementing the core 10-piece band and its iconic horn section with additional horns and a string section.

As we all wait patiently for live music to start happening again, groups that have subsisted on touring have been doing their best to replicate the concert experience any way they can. For Bay Area soul/funk icons Tower of Power, that means releasing this document of the group's 50th birthday celebration. The shows were a proper event with former members sitting in with the current lineup and a hometown crowd having their minds blown for two hours straight. If anything, this triple LP edition might cause some small frustrations at having to keep flipping and swapping out the records right when it feels like you've settled into a comfortable groove. But if you can suffer the inconvenience of heading to the turntable on the regular, you'll be rewarded with a white hot performance with awe-inspiring turns from longtime drummer David Garibaldi, vocalist Marcus Scott and, of course, that legendary horn section.