Continuing its “Hot Summer Nights” series of concerts at The Greek Theatre in Los Angeles’ Griffith Park, radio station Hot 92.3 served a near-capacity crowd a full night of funk by some of the surviving best from back in the day.

Opening the show was Zapp, the Ohio band that launched the late, great Roger Troutman to international superstardom. Zapp’s show was colorful and wild but suffered from way too much of a circus atmosphere. This is a band that has more hits than you can shake a stick at, but they wasted too much time on weirdness like member Bigg Robb disrobing down to his drawers on stage and spraying canned Silly String through the audience. Perhaps they resorted to these sophomoric antics because they were in the opening slot, but this outfit has way too many hits at its disposal (especially when you add the Roger affiliations) to fill time in this manner. Roger would not have stood for this! When they got down to the business of bumpin’ booties with “Dancefloor,” “More Bounce to the Ounce” and “California Love” as well as love songs like “I Wanna Be Your Man” and “Computer Love,” they had the crowd in the palms of their hands. But in all that other time they wasted on foolishness, I’d rather they have been bangin’ “Heartbreaker” and “Grapevine.” Kudos to Lester “Zapp” Troutman, though, who threw down some vicious beats from behind his drum kit.

Next up was ConFunkShun, the Northern California-based band that didn’t waste a second of their set, coming out strong with “Chase Me” and never letting the energy up. Emphasizing tight choreography and serious musicianship, they hustled through a couple of more up tempo hits (including a fierce bass solo) before slowing things down to milk their biggest ballad, “Love’s Train,” for all it was worth. Lead singer/guitarist Michael Cooper handled his business, getting the crowd to sing a long and take that ride down memory lane. It was regrettable there wasn’t more time for them to include gems like “Let Me Put Love On Your Mind,” but that’s the way it goes on festival bills…

If fans felt slightly cheated by the omissions in ConFunkShun’s set, they felt down-right ripped-off when it came to Midnight Star! This Midwest powerhouse only got to do a scant three numbers, but they were a whirlwind of funk-alicious activity throughout. Taking the stage shrouded in black capes, the front line of guitarist Melvin Gentry, singer Belinda Lipscomb and keyboardist/vocalist Bo Watson whipped them off, struck a pose then launched into “Electricity,” rockin’ from one end of the stage to the other. They shifted gears smoothly into the techno-smash “Freak-a-zoid” which, indeed, brought out the friskiness in everyone onstage and in the crowd. Their set’s highlight came in the closing duet “Slow Jam” which included THE vocal performance of the night from Lipscomb and, particularly, Bo Watson, whose falsetto flights and impassioned ad libs were flawless and jaw-dropping. You literally wanted to hear this man continue singing all night he was in such fine voice. Midnight Star is way overdue for a headlining L.A. shot that amply showcases the underrated talent they have honed across the decades.

Next up was Atlanta’s The S.O.S. Band. Anchored by lead singer Mary Davis upfront and a ferociously fierce lady drummer in back, girl power was in full effect as far as this groups was concerned. And the fellas were no slouches either. S.O.S. was the most impressive as far as sophisticated instrumental musicianship, especially the hard bop tandem trumpet and saxophone riffs (though they had some technical difficulties in the synth and sequencing department in the beginning, plus the guitarist was way too low in the mix). But with Mary leading the crowd through sing-a-longs of hits like “Just The Way You Like It” and “Take Your Time (Do It Right),” all was pretty much forgiven as they rode those relentless grooves into the twilight. One suggestion: because so many of their biggest hits were penned and produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, they could have gotten away with doing medleys that included more songs instead of vamping away through the chosen ones for an overly long time.

Headliner Morris Day was reviewed last month by this writer - on this Website - for the historic Las Vegas reunion of all the original members of The Time, so it’s painfully challenging to objectively assess the renditions of The Time songs performed on this night. Interestingly, Day did latter days Time numbers such as “Pandemonium” and “Chocolate” as well as a snippet of the band’s first ballad “Girl,” none of which he did with the o.g. Time in Sin City. But just about anything else he did with this band – be it an album gem like “Skillet” or a hit like “Get it Up” - truly paled in comparison. Even more puzzling, Day did NOT do any of his solo singles such as “Color of Success,” “Oak Tree” or “Fishnet.” With original Time keyboardist Monte Moir and drummer Jellybean Johnson joined by substitute guitarist Tory Ruffin (who was more in his element rockin’ out in actress Cree Summer’s long lamented band Subject to Change than he is in the shadow of all-around frets master Jesse Johnson), a bassist, an auxiliary keyboardist and TWO valets to replace comic foil Jerome Benton, all focus was squarely on Day who was in good voice and good spirits. But for all he brought to the table, you felt like you were getting a canned revue of The Time instead of the real thing - especially if you’d just recently been…“experienced.”