Motorpoint Arena Cardiff
Tue 18 Dec
It’s refreshing to find out that Nile Rodgers & Chic are going by that moniker, rather than the simpler and more elegant ‘Chic’ which brought them fame, for decent reasons. Rather than the half-expected legal wrangling, Rodgers is currently fixing his name to the marquee because “it’s more accurate”. Which still sounds rather bigheaded, and maybe is in part. But, to look at it another way, reflects the reality of disco’s greatest polymath being the last man standing from the band whose unmatched chops, compositional nous and dazzling image lit up the late 1970s.
Chic’s brilliance, in their heyday, lay in how they both exemplified disco – if someone has sufficient knowledge to name 10 songs from the genre, it’s a fair bet one or two of theirs will feature – and transcended it. Two of their biggest inspirations were Roxy Music and Kiss, although without Rodgers and co-founder Bernard Edwards’ grounding in soul and funk groups (including the Sesame Street house band, in Rodgers’ case), Chic would have been a wholly different affair. Their ascendency in the New York scene of the time coincided with clubs like Studio 54 and disco becoming a commercial behemoth – spoils very much shared by the band, singles Le Freak and Good Times moving wild units through 78-79.
Chic’s brisk workrate couldn’t maintain their position for long, though: diminishing returns combined with a hefty backlash for disco in general led to the band splitting in 1983, after which Rodgers and Edwards moved into production and session work. Edwards died in 1996, followed by Tony Thompson – hic drummer and their most important secondary member – in 2003, but Rodgers has pressed on, always having some sort of project on the go and assigned an almost statesmanlike rank. It’s About Time, the first Chic album since 1992, recently came out, its laundry list of star guests only topped by its already-imminent followup Executive Realness. No idea if any will feature on this tour, but seeing Nile Rodgers play guitar in the flesh should be the primo attraction. NOEL GARDNER
Tickets: from £45. Info: 029 2022 4488 / motorpointarenacardiff.co.uk