If your only exposure to a man named James Brown had been his highly choreographed performance last night at the 9:30 Club, you’d probably come away thinking that he was a richly talented, energetic soul musician in the prime of his life with an inexplicable penchant for frayed cherry red suits. And indeed, the legendary James Brown definitively proved that he’s a richly talented, energetic soul musician with an inexplicable penchant for frayed cherry red suits.

But Brown is most certainly not in the prime of his life. He’s 72 going on 73. Although he’s the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee who basically invented funk music in the 1960s and churned out a string of R&B-driven classics, he has survived battles with the law (he served jail time on drug and assault convictions and pleaded no contest to a domestic violence charge for smacking around his fourth wife, singer Tomi Rea), with prostate cancer, and with bad music (listen to 1977’s ridiculously titled Mutha’s Nature). At his age and with a track record like that, you might expect Brown to pack it in and cover Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt.”

If James Brown packed it in, he wouldn’t be living up to his self-proclaimed title. What’s that? I said, he wouldn’t be living up to his title. Go ahead! His reputation. Yeah! You know, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business! The Godfather of Soul! Soul Brother Number One! Mr. Please Please! Mr. Dynamite! Butane James! And last night, Mr. Please Please put on a sterling show befitting his reputation.