Nile Rodgers quickly permitted the audience to get up out of their seats explaining: “We’re a dance band”.
You could feel the energy between Rodgers, his backing vocalists Kimberley Davis and Audrey Martells mainline straight into the audience from the first notes of Le Freak.
There was an urgency to Everybody Dance as if it was a command delivered during the last night on earth. The front rows were full of spirited fans buoyed by Rodgers who would regularly appear at the front of the stage with his white Fender Stratocaster while sometimes exchanging a few words. He’d point at the movers and occasionally fist-pump with a fan.
Jerry Barnes on bass is an impressive talent in his own right and watching him take on the lines of the late Bernard Edwards was spellbinding. It’s impossible to measure the talent of Rodgers whose guitar work, songwriting and production skills cascade through the decades. Vocal powerhouse Kimberley Davis owns the stage during Daft Punk’s Get Lucky and Lose Yourself To Dance. What holds the eclectic set together is Rogers rhythmic and percussive playing that works like an enchantment on hit after solid gold hit. It’s effectively felt tonight on My Feet Keep Dancing especially when the brass kicks in and Barnes moves across the front the stage in time to the groove.
Audrey Martells is on lead vocal for a show-stopping Lost In Music. The Sister Sledge hit from the summer of 1979 was cut at the Power Station in New York and still has the power to get everybody moving in the spirit during this rare theatre performance. You’d expect Nile Rodgers to go for a big finish and he doesn’t let anyone down firstly with Bowie’s Let’s Dance, another global smash from 1983. Vocals are handled by drummer Ralph Rolle who has the timbre to handle the rich and textured delivery of the original.
The big screen displays a colourful selection of pop art style images including the Aladdin Sane flash as Nile delivers the track’s sublime guitar solo. The grand finale is what else but Good Times which stretches out over ten minutes. One dedicated fan holds out a hand and Rodgers presses one of his magic red guitar picks into the lad’s palm.
A roadie accelerates onto the stage at full speed and quickly dispenses the rest into the pocket of his black shorts as if they are priceless jewels. Maybe these guitar picks hold the secret?
The magic of what we have just witnessed hangs in the air for a few moments. The sonic workout, the splicing in of Rapper’s Delight, the plaudits handed to the Scottish audience as the best “it’s true” screams one woman in the front row and she’s not wrong.
Even the rain stotting off the ground can’t dampen spirits, we “feel so alive.”
