As curator of this year’s Meltdown, Nile Rodgers set the bar high on the festival’s first night: a career celebration that climaxed with a disco stage invasion.
A series of sleek Seventies hits, including Everybody Dance, got the party started. Yet Chic were largely a spent force by the early Eighties. So this performance was as much about Rodgers the super-producer and hitmaker for other artists — David Bowie, Madonna and Daft Punk.
While his pre-gig talk was heavy on name-dropping (Sinatra, Obama, Miles Davis), the history lesson did contextualise the ensuing covers of Like a Virgin and Get Lucky by the superlative funk band.
Dazzling in a silver suit, Rodgers and his sublime guitar-playing were the focal point, though he left lead vocals to others. When it came to Let’s Dance, drummer Ralph Rolle got to sing like Bowie.
Perhaps Chic wasn’t typical Meltdown fare — it usually leans towards leftfield music. But Le Freak and Good Times underlined the songwriting quality. The nostalgia peaked with a Southbank recreation of New York nightclub Studio 54 after the gig.
Rodgers’ timeless tunes can still induce enthusiastic disco dancing — particularly for the dozens of fans who ended up partying on stage.
