Kool & The Gang at Pechanga

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You cannot get through an American wedding without hearing them. At this point 'Celebration' is practically written into federal law.

But reduce this band to that one song and you miss fifty years of the tightest funk horn section in the business — 'Jungle Boogie,' 'Get Down On It,' 'Ladies Night,' 'Summer Madness.' Live, the groove stops being a metaphor and becomes a physical fact. Nobody stays fully seated. Nobody wants to.

The valley gets them on a November night, close enough that the whole family can come, and everyone from the teenagers to the grandparents will recognize half the set without being told what it is.

Pechanga Resort Casino, 45000 Pechanga Pkwy, Temecula.

This is joy practiced as a professional discipline, by a band that has been perfecting it since before your parents met. Bring everybody, and leave the bad mood in the parking lot where it belongs.