‘But You Can’t Erase a Memory’ – Living Colour Returns to NYC for Juneteenth Celebration
NYC-based rock band Living Colour celebrated Juneteenth with a special performance at the Hard Rock Cafe.
Living Colour sold out the iconic Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square on June 19 as part of the citywide Juneteenth celebrations. The Grammy award-winning hometown heroes were joined by Radkey, DJ Logic and other special guests to commemorate Black independence.
Comedian W. Kamau Bell kicked off the headliner with a personal story about the first time he heard the band’s prophetic sophomore album “Time’s Up.” It was then, he said, that he realized Living Colour would become his favorite band of all time. Frontman Corey Glover revealed in April that Bell is behind a possible Living Colour documentary for which they are currently in the beginning stages.
Their musical contributions, Bell said, are so obviously representative of Black music history—which means they are representative of all music history.
Only a song into their set, lead guitarist Vernon Reid called up NY City Council Member Dr. Yusef Salaam, one of the five falsely convicted Black and Latino men in the 1989 “Central Park Five” case.
Reid, who co-founded the Black Rock Coalition, shared anecdotes of writing the first-ever Living Colour song, “Funny Vibe,” inspired by an older white woman who would clutch her handbag close to her every time he’d walk by.
Lyrically, Reid never lost sight of his roots. Thus, piercingly topical songs like “Pride,” “Fight the Fight” and “Which Way to America” populated the setlist.
A highlight was Glover’s vocalizing on an extended cut of fan-favorite “Open Letter (To a Landlord),” which tells the haunting story of urban gentrification— “Now you can tear a building down / But you can’t erase a memory.”
Glover, a Brooklyn native himself, called out every NYC neighborhood saying, “You’ve got to fight.”
“You’re the city that built us,” Reid said. “We love you, New York.”
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”