Say She She Get Funky at Sold-Out Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday Night
Say She She – Music Hall of Williamsburg – June 8, 2024
Some things never go out of style, like blue jeans, baseball or funky good times. Say She She brought a whole lot of the latter to Music Hall of Williamsburg on Saturday night, mixing a timeless funk with a modern-day sensibility — and the good times were rolling. The set opened with “Reeling,” the three vocalists — Piya Malik, Sabrina Mileo Cunningham and Nya Gazelle Brown — delivering soulful soprano harmonies while the band thumped a groove behind them, as if Sharon Jones had been reincarnated as three opera singers, former Dap-King Binky Griptite leading on guitar to complete the scene.
Brown exuberantly announced, “We came to make you dance” after the opening tune and it was truth in advertising. The packed house grooved to tunes like “C'est Si Bon,” with its heavy bass disco, and “Prism,” which featured the ladies doing a hip shimmy, one of many choreographed moves that helped get the audience boogying. The straight disco-funk sound evolved a bit as the set went on, a darker feel on “Echo in the Chamber,” some serious rock on “Blow My Mind,” which ended with a spicy solo from Griptite, and a modern synth groove on “Questions.”
A take on the Talking Heads’ “Slippery People” was a perfect fit, giving the band extra room to move and ending in a nifty three-woman scat jam. The trio left the stage to the let the band have their deserved spotlight and then returned in new sparkle-heavy outfits and took back the spotlight, saving some of the best vocals for late-set tunes like “Astral Plane” and the serious clavinet-funk of “Forget Me Not.” Ethereal harmonies, a groove-ready band and a packed-house party in Brooklyn, some things will never go out of style. —A. Stein | @Neddyo
Photos courtesy of Ken Grand-Pierre | www.kenamiphoto.com
