Nile Rodgers Brought The Funk

Freak Out

Nile Rodgers/Chic

DJ Set Jnett

29 October 2023

The Forum

Sunday night and the last gig of the Australian tour for Rodgers and his funky unit. The Forum was packed to the gills and if it was not sold out it was bloody close to it. Jnett was wrapping up the last 15 or 20 minutes of her DJ set as we did the duck and weave towards the front of the stage. We were doing the General Admission dance to the front or as close as we could manage.

Unfortunately, the crowd was far from funky close to the stage. As a matter of fact, many of them acted as if they were entitled to a particular space, even if we could move more people into the area. Hearing people complain about ‘being there before you” when there was still room began to raise my bile a tad.  

One woman said I should stand further back because I am tall. I asked her if I should cut my legs off and she gave me some dazed and confused look. Or did she feel that if you are tall you can never get close to a band you love? She did not quite get the logic and I wondered if she was altered or just dumb.

 For the first half of the show she remained lodged into my side inhibiting my dancing a tad and I could feel that she was just annoyed by the energy coming out of her pores. She was not Sunday night chilled.

Face it people, this is a feel-good night of nostalgia and hits from the genius that is Mr. Rodgers. But the neighbourhood seemed to be filled with people who either did not deal well with crowds, some that did not want to be there, and others who we encountered later wanted to remain in their seats while others danced. Guess it was just a school night sort of crowd.

Let’s Dance!

We certainly did even if we were jammed in a bit like sardines. Dashing off 4 funky Chic songs, Le Freak, Everybody Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance and I Want Your Love got the party going. Rodgers worked the crowd and his band into a beautiful frenetic funk machine. It was funktatious.

Rodgers has produced and recorded with everyone and a couple of Bowie songs (Modern Love and Let’s Dance) and 2 Daft Punk tunes (Get Lucky and Lose Yourself To Dance) were some of the highlights of his back catalogue.

We got about 1/2 of the way through the gig and one of my trio, a petite woman, went up to the rail to try and get a picture. There was a man mountain of an idiot who shoved his body into her and then pushed her away. His delightful partner gave her the double middle finger and snarled. What the hell was going on as I watched from 8 feet away?

She went for security, and I tapped the aforementioned pinhead on the shoulder and decked him.

Well, that was easy!

No, I told him that was f*#&@ up behaviour.

He looked at me as if I had landed from Saturn and I had to repeat myself. He told me he had been there for 2 hours already and that was supposed to make his actions understandable. I repeated my words and we talked with security. They were not very helpful and sort of sided with the guy because of the time he had been upfront. I then had to voice my concern to security,  “What you are telling me is that treating a woman in a physical nature is all OK?  I shook my head, and we got out of the pit.

We were met with other personnel and security who wanted to find out what went down and they dealt with the episode in an excellent way. They told us they would keep an eye on the guy and they gave us prime positions in one of the booths at the venue. Synchronicity was on our side as there were a couple of people we knew boothed with us and they loved to dance.

Looking around there were many people looking tired, and old and were sitting near us. If you cannot stand or dance due to a physical issue or age that is fine. But please, do not be the dancing police at a FUNK concert. Some people near us asked us to sit and we politely declined. Security was not needed but I don’t get the deal of coming out to a gig and sitting and watching like it is a video.

And seriously, I am 66 so I think I can talk about 'old’.

Nile and Chic were very moved to be in Australia and Rodgers made it clear that this had been a special tour for them. He seemed surprised that there was such a big turnout for them.
Martell showcased her Brooklyn pipes and she blew the crowd away. She was joined by Kimberley Davis on vocals and their dancing and singing and jiving with Rodgers displayed an energy and a joyfulness that was coming from their soul.

This tight 7-piece band closed it down with Good Times/Rappers Delight. At 71 Rodgers looks like nothing is slowing him down and his promise to be back is certainly not an empty one.

My thanks go out to all the staff at The Forum for helping us recover our evening so we could remain in the house of funk.

Chic-2023

Nile Rodgers-Guitar

Jerry Barnes-Bass

Kimberley Davis-Vocals

Audrey Martells-Vocals

Ralph Rolle-Drums

Russell Graham-Keys

Steve Jankowski-Trumpet

Ken Gioffre-Saxophone