Minneapolis - Song du Jour: "Word Up"

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Song du Jour: "Word Up"

Cameo, "Word Up." So my friend Meghan and I go to the still-fabulous-after-all-these-years Arnellia's for the late show Friday night by these '70s funk stalwarts, not really expecting much. We're feeling a little conspicuous, not for being one of four white people in the packed club, but for the fact that we are not dressed in our Sunday best and I forgot my derby.

We hang for a while up in front of the stage, then stand in back, digging on the Prince-centric opening band. Just before Cameo goes on, I have the Marvin Gaye (chicken wings, fish sticks, fries, all double-salted to heart-attack proportions-pleasure) and a Corona, and pretty much feel like I've got the world by the tail.

Then the funk starts flying. Synth and bass and all that yow. The dance floor fills. "Candy," "Skin I'm In," and, of course, the now-I-can-die-happy "Word Up." We shuffle-dance like the old-schoolers most all of us in the house are (all except for one child-woman who wore her jeans "like she'd been packed into them with an ice cream scoop," as Woody Allen once described Earl "The Pearl" Monroe's girlfriend) and I wake up the next day wondering Did I really dance to Cameo doing Word Up LIVE last night?

Seems I did, though the core of the group -- Tomi Jenkins, Nathan Leftenent, and Larry Blackmon -- came without Blackmon's signature red codpiece. Alas; here it is now, for all your crotch-gawking pleasure. Yow.