About a month ago I was supposed to attend a seventies-themed concert, but my trip to Dallas caused me to have to sacrifice the show, which was quite disappointing. A couple of weeks after I had returned I was in my car flipping through the radio stations and when I reached CBS FM 101.1, one of the only two stations left in the city that actually plays any music, there was an announcement of an even bigger seventies concert coming up at the end of the month. It was the Legends of Disco concert and it was going to take place in the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center.
There were two options for tickets; one was a standing room only option for $89, and the other was a VIP package for $120 which would include a seat in the balcony and an invitation to the after party to meet the performers. The after party angle sounded nice, but I would rather stand up and get as close as possible to the stage, so I went with the lower-costing option. I don't think I have any official disco clothes, so originally I was going to go with a similar outfit from the 80's party I attended a few months ago, but realizing the same exact shirt would've been too loud for the subway, I switched it up with a more tranquil Miami Beach shirt I bought last year. The inside of the Hammerstein Ballroom was set up to look like old disco night club like Studio 54; there was a colored cubed dance floor, a disco ball, cocktails being served, and small tables set up in the back. The only modernization was that the deejay was spinning seventies dance hits from his Mac laptop. I was happy I selected the standing-room only ticket as the balcony seats were way in the back and away from all the action. As for the drinks, I selected a few of the five-dollar Pot O'Luck beers in which the bartender puts her hand in a box and whatever bottle comes out with is what you get. My luck brought me a Murphy's and a Killian Red. Most people in attendance did have some type of disco or seventies clothing on. The biggest standout was this pair I saw on the bar line in which this one guy had the biggest fro in the entire place, maybe even in the entire city at that moment.
The event was hosted by CBS FM personality Brooklyn Own's Joe Cousi with the assistance of Deney Terrio, who was the dance instructor that helped John Travolta prepare for his role in the 1977 film "Saturday Night Fever" which brought disco into the mainstream. Deney spent plenty of time on stage doing some of those same moves from the movie as well as taking turns with all the ladies lined up to dance a few moments with him. As the live music was about to start I needled my way towards the stage and found a good position only about ten people back. The first group to go was Harold Melvin's Blue Notes, which was made up of the last remnants of the more infamous Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. The leader of the group, Harold Melvin, died several years ago and the most successful member, Teddy Pendergrass, broke off in 1977 to be a solo artist, but died himself just two years ago. Nevertheless, the four-member team that makes up the group now sounded just as good as those recordings back in the seventies. They performed all the signature hits such as "Where Are All My Friends", "The Lost I Lost", "If You Don't Know Me By Now", "Wake Up, Everybody", and even their version of "Don't Leave Me This Way". All of the performers, except the final act, didn't have any musicians accompany them. The music came out of the speakers and the singers had to make sure they timed everything correctly.
Next to come out on stage was France Joli, and at first I really had no idea who she was. It wasn't until she ended her set with with her signature song "Come to Me" that I recognized one of her tunes. She wasn't on long at all and following her was Lime, who supposedly exploded onto the Montreal scene back in the early eighties. This was a seventies disco show, so I guess Lime was disco-ish enough in the eighties to fit in. What separated them from everyone else is they had a big supply of rubberbands on their arms which they flicked at the crowd while they danced (must be a Canadian thing). One group that played a role in the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, Tavares, was next. Their version of "More Than a Woman" played in the film, even though it was written by the Bee Gees. They played that hit, "It Only Takes a Minute Girl", "Please Don't Stop the Music", "Turn Your Love Around", and capped it off with their most known song, "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel". One valuable piece of information I learned that night is that the Tavares group are actually brothers, all four of them. More personalities came out for a few minutes on stage such as another CBS FM figure, Broadway Bill Lee, and longtime FOX 5 anchorwoman Rosanna Scott, who current hosts "Good Day New York" on the same channel.
Between sets and even during performances some of the couples around me were dancing and I must have gotten banged into at least a few dozen times. There was also an elderly man dressed in a crummy suit and green sneakers swinging his arms around as well which I had to look out for. Once it was time for the next group to come out, I had to make sure I was standing in an area that wasn't going to have an arm or a leg flying out of nowhere. The Tramps, featuring last original member Earl Young, were out next. Young is actually seventy-one years old himself, but he was still capable for breaking out the dance moves. They went through a number songs, including a Doo-Wop style rendition, but everyone came to see them sing "Disco Inferno", which got one of the biggest crowd reactions of the night. The "Burn Baby Burn" segment of the song makes it perhaps one of the most recognized songs of all time, even thirty-plus years later. That had me thinking that this period was really the final chapter of music's Golden Era. Afterwards came MTV, red carpet fashion, meaningless award shows, hip-hop, bubblegum pop, digital synthesizers, celebrity-for-nothing, Twitter following, and American Idol; it's all been downhill and getting increasingly worse. Collectively; the songs, the sound, and the talent from these past thirty years are on a significantly lower scale from what was being produced from 1950-1979. There's no melody, no harmony, no accompaniment, and musical instruments are an endangered species. For some reason I doubt anyone is going to want to see many of today's artists at a concert thirty or forty years from now. Perhaps MTV altered the balance of putting style of over substance, whereas all the effort goes into the look versus the most essential part of a song, the sound. A good song will go one for a very long time, a lesson not many artists today seem to grasp, and the public is satisfied as long as they get a catchy ring tone out of it. I'm happy a good number of these acts are still around to experience, I just feel bad for people who will be born fifty years from now and will never fully understand what they missed.
There were two options for tickets; one was a standing room only option for $89, and the other was a VIP package for $120 which would include a seat in the balcony and an invitation to the after party to meet the performers. The after party angle sounded nice, but I would rather stand up and get as close as possible to the stage, so I went with the lower-costing option. I don't think I have any official disco clothes, so originally I was going to go with a similar outfit from the 80's party I attended a few months ago, but realizing the same exact shirt would've been too loud for the subway, I switched it up with a more tranquil Miami Beach shirt I bought last year. The inside of the Hammerstein Ballroom was set up to look like old disco night club like Studio 54; there was a colored cubed dance floor, a disco ball, cocktails being served, and small tables set up in the back. The only modernization was that the deejay was spinning seventies dance hits from his Mac laptop. I was happy I selected the standing-room only ticket as the balcony seats were way in the back and away from all the action. As for the drinks, I selected a few of the five-dollar Pot O'Luck beers in which the bartender puts her hand in a box and whatever bottle comes out with is what you get. My luck brought me a Murphy's and a Killian Red. Most people in attendance did have some type of disco or seventies clothing on. The biggest standout was this pair I saw on the bar line in which this one guy had the biggest fro in the entire place, maybe even in the entire city at that moment.
The event was hosted by CBS FM personality Brooklyn Own's Joe Cousi with the assistance of Deney Terrio, who was the dance instructor that helped John Travolta prepare for his role in the 1977 film "Saturday Night Fever" which brought disco into the mainstream. Deney spent plenty of time on stage doing some of those same moves from the movie as well as taking turns with all the ladies lined up to dance a few moments with him. As the live music was about to start I needled my way towards the stage and found a good position only about ten people back. The first group to go was Harold Melvin's Blue Notes, which was made up of the last remnants of the more infamous Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. The leader of the group, Harold Melvin, died several years ago and the most successful member, Teddy Pendergrass, broke off in 1977 to be a solo artist, but died himself just two years ago. Nevertheless, the four-member team that makes up the group now sounded just as good as those recordings back in the seventies. They performed all the signature hits such as "Where Are All My Friends", "The Lost I Lost", "If You Don't Know Me By Now", "Wake Up, Everybody", and even their version of "Don't Leave Me This Way". All of the performers, except the final act, didn't have any musicians accompany them. The music came out of the speakers and the singers had to make sure they timed everything correctly.
Next to come out on stage was France Joli, and at first I really had no idea who she was. It wasn't until she ended her set with with her signature song "Come to Me" that I recognized one of her tunes. She wasn't on long at all and following her was Lime, who supposedly exploded onto the Montreal scene back in the early eighties. This was a seventies disco show, so I guess Lime was disco-ish enough in the eighties to fit in. What separated them from everyone else is they had a big supply of rubberbands on their arms which they flicked at the crowd while they danced (must be a Canadian thing). One group that played a role in the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack, Tavares, was next. Their version of "More Than a Woman" played in the film, even though it was written by the Bee Gees. They played that hit, "It Only Takes a Minute Girl", "Please Don't Stop the Music", "Turn Your Love Around", and capped it off with their most known song, "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel". One valuable piece of information I learned that night is that the Tavares group are actually brothers, all four of them. More personalities came out for a few minutes on stage such as another CBS FM figure, Broadway Bill Lee, and longtime FOX 5 anchorwoman Rosanna Scott, who current hosts "Good Day New York" on the same channel.
Between sets and even during performances some of the couples around me were dancing and I must have gotten banged into at least a few dozen times. There was also an elderly man dressed in a crummy suit and green sneakers swinging his arms around as well which I had to look out for. Once it was time for the next group to come out, I had to make sure I was standing in an area that wasn't going to have an arm or a leg flying out of nowhere. The Tramps, featuring last original member Earl Young, were out next. Young is actually seventy-one years old himself, but he was still capable for breaking out the dance moves. They went through a number songs, including a Doo-Wop style rendition, but everyone came to see them sing "Disco Inferno", which got one of the biggest crowd reactions of the night. The "Burn Baby Burn" segment of the song makes it perhaps one of the most recognized songs of all time, even thirty-plus years later. That had me thinking that this period was really the final chapter of music's Golden Era. Afterwards came MTV, red carpet fashion, meaningless award shows, hip-hop, bubblegum pop, digital synthesizers, celebrity-for-nothing, Twitter following, and American Idol; it's all been downhill and getting increasingly worse. Collectively; the songs, the sound, and the talent from these past thirty years are on a significantly lower scale from what was being produced from 1950-1979. There's no melody, no harmony, no accompaniment, and musical instruments are an endangered species. For some reason I doubt anyone is going to want to see many of today's artists at a concert thirty or forty years from now. Perhaps MTV altered the balance of putting style of over substance, whereas all the effort goes into the look versus the most essential part of a song, the sound. A good song will go one for a very long time, a lesson not many artists today seem to grasp, and the public is satisfied as long as they get a catchy ring tone out of it. I'm happy a good number of these acts are still around to experience, I just feel bad for people who will be born fifty years from now and will never fully understand what they missed.
The headline act of the night was Nile Rodgers & The Chic Organization, which back in the seventies went by the simpler name, Chic. Unlike the previous groups of the night, this one had a full band of musicians accompanying them. Rodgers himself is on lead guitar and pitches in with the vocals. As they normally do when they perform, Chic started out with "Everybody Dance", then followed-up with "Dance, Dance Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)". Yes, that is the full title of the song. Nile Rodgers not only wrote the songs for Chic, but he also wrote songs for other artists during the period which they performed such as Diana Ross' "I'm Coming Out" and "Upside Down", Sister Sledge's "We Are Family" and "He's the Greatest Dancer". A few years after those hits, Rodgers also wrote "Like a Virgin" for a lesser known Madonna at the time. As the show drew to a close they wrapped it up with their signature hits "Le Freak", and had all the performers and their entourages come on stage for "Good Times". The entire show ended close to midnight and since I was on my feet for so long, I was three times as hungry. Luckily at the corner from the Manhattan Center was the Tick Tock Diner. It seemed several people who attended the concert had the same idea I did, including the guy with the huge fro.
Since the place was so packed it took forever to get my order in; I went with a Philly cheesesteak and fries. For a drink, they had something listed as "Vanilla Eggcream Their Way", which sounds like how I would title a food or beverage, so I had no choice but to take it. The eggcream was surprisingly great and I had to pace myself from not drinking it all before my cheesesteak arrived. As I waited for my food, a group of four walked which included CBS FM radio personality Broadway Bill Lee. The friend of the fro guy instantly shook his hand and took up a small conversation with him, which Lee looked like he wanted to get out of immediately. I had to wait nearly fifteen minutes before someone took my order, after Broadway Bill Lee sat down for only three minutes, he was already telling a busboy that he wanted service. As I finally got my food and was enjoying it, I got to look on at Lee being a pesky customer. First he was a little irked that they didn't have any soups available. Then he ordered some super-specific egg dish with sprinkled grated cheese on top. It would've been fun to see if he left a decent tip or not, but it was getting late and I had a long subway ride back. At the concert they announced they'll be doing it again next year, so I think I'll want to go.
I just know where a certain radio deejay won't be eating afterwards...
No comments:
Post a Comment