CHIC

HMV Forum, London | June 14th

It’s difficult to know where to start with a gig like this.

You could begin by mentioning Nicky Siano’s valiant attempts at transforming a characterless venue like the Forum into a simulacra of Studio 54’s sweaty sophistication. You could mention hearing Loleatta Holloway’s Love Sensation immediately upon entering, played at a volume that lended it an intensity that made it feel like the most important record you’d ever heard. You could mention his charmingly goofy, knowingly OTT behind-deck knob twiddling. You could mention the palpable wave of pleasure that emanated from each and every member of the audience when the opening strains of Young Hearts Run Free slid into the mix.

You could mention our excited gasps when we saw Chic assemble at the back of the stage. You could try to explain how a band could come on and toss off a song as monumental as Dance, Dance, Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah) as their second song like it wasn’t a big deal. You could try to sum up two hours of the most joyous music ever made. You could start listing songs until you realised that they played pretty much every amazing record of the last 30 years. You could attempt to convey just how effortlessly charming Nile Rodgers was. You could begin to possibly explain the feeling that hearing Spacer live, in a room full of people who wanted to – and more importantly did – dance all night, invoked and inspired before you remembered that we don’t have words for things like that, for feelings like that, for experiences like that.

You could think of another time in your life where you felt every worry, every anxiety, every scrap of doubt just float away and vanish, replaced by a desire to live this moment for as long as possible, before you could only think that a night like this is a night like this because it doesn’t happen every night. So you sit there, trying to recompose the evening, trying to find the words for it, struggling to summarise what could have been the most enjoyable evening you’d ever had, but how can you? In the end, all you can think is: I was there, I saw Chic do Soup for One, I saw Chic do Like a Virgin, I saw Chic do Good Times for 15 minutes and I never ever ever wanted it to end. This was why we care about music. This was why music is the best thing we will ever have. This is why it’s more important than pretty much anything in the world.

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This show was presented by Lovebox (Victoria Park, London, July 19th-21st) and Red Bull Music Academy.

Words: Josh Baines