Live Review: Nile Rodgers & Chic, Todd Terry

New York's pioneering house DJ Todd Terry drops vintage funk, disco and boogie – from Slave to Prince to Diana Ross. Notably, Terry eschews the laptop for a CDJ and mixer, and he uses that EQ dial. Terry is renowned for his remix of Everything But The Girl's Missing but, before that, he invented hip-house with Jungle Brothers' I'll House You. A support gig may seem ignominious, yet Terry can only benefit from his association with the eternally cool Nile Rodgers – who actually appears in the DJ booth.  
Rodgers is pop's ultimate renaissance man, his collaboration with Daft Punk, Get Lucky, one of 2013's defining singles. The Chic guitarist/co-founder (and original super-producer) is, indirectly, up for multiple Grammies. In a pre-show Q&A at Billboard, the New Yorker reportedly hints at working with Miley Cyrus. Remarkably, he's a recent cancer survivor.
This evening The King Of The Groove, here to headline Meredith following 2012's Golden Plains, doesn't perform Get Lucky with his eight-piece troupe, but rather revisits an expansive back catalogue of Chic hits and smash productions (both with the late Bernard Edwards and solo). The hipsters and ol' skoolers alike love it.
Rodgers and co hit the stage just after 11, jamming for nearly two hours. “Are you all ready to party with us?,” an ebullient Rodgers calls, promising to play “old-fashioned disco and funk”. The band are all decked out in white, though singers Kimberly Davis and Folami Ankoanda-Thompson wear a splash of red sparkle. Chic open with 1977's break-out Everybody Dance. Rodgers stresses that he doesn't perform “covers” but songs he helped to create, leading into a breezy version of Miss Ross' I'm Coming Out. There are reclamations of several Sister Sledge numbers, starting with He's The Greatest Dancer. Most surprising are the funk renditions of Rodgers' New Wave classics – Duran Duran's Notorious, INXS' Original Sin (cut in one take, the band leader tells us) and, particularly, David Bowie's Let's Dance (sung by bassist Jerry Barnes). And Madonna's Like A Virgin is represented, Ankoanda-Thompson sounding less Material Girl-cutesy than Deniece Williams-sweet. Another revelation? French outfit Sheila & B Devotion's cosmic-disco Spacer. Chic's finale is an epic Studio 54-inspired Good Times – surpassing even the mega Le Freak – with audience members bopping onstage. Rodgers, ever aware of his (and The Chic Organisation's) cultural legacy, has the band segue into Sugarhill Gang's seminal Rapper's Delight, which famously sampled Good Times. Awesomely, Terry raps it.