And that was what time it was

At this point, there aren't many musical artists that I'm dying to see live in concert that I haven't already seen. The list shrunk by one on Saturday when I finally saw Morris Day and the Time play at the Mahaffey Theatre in St. Petersburg. Well, it wasn't all of the original Time. No Jimmy Jam, Terry Lewis, Jesse Johnson or Jerome Benton. It wasn't even the Time 2.0 which is the band portrayed as Prince's rivals in Purple Rain. Being a fan of the whole Prince Mineapolis multiverse since I was a kid, it would have been nice to see those guys (seriously, was Jerome too busy?). As it stands right now, there's some legal matters that complicate things when it comes to the Time, mostly because Prince still owns the rights to the band's name. When the original line-up gets together to record, they do so now as The Original 7ven. Meanwhile, Morris Day can put a band together with just about anybody in it and tour as "Morris Day and the Time" and that's who I saw. It was still a great show though, with original members 'Jellybean' Johnson on drums and Monte Moir on keys. They put on a great show; how could they not, with the ever-charismatic Morris Day fronting them? Of course they played "The Bird" and (show closer) "Jungle Love" which everybody knows from the movie, along with "The Walk", "Wild and Loose" and "777-9311" which got airplay back in the '80s as well as "Chocolate" and "Pandemonium" for the benefit of true, long-time fans (like me). It really was a great night, in spite of my date being an utter train wreck, a story I will tell here on Wednesday.