A night with Giorgio Moroder
05 21 2013
Property of Gotta Dance Dirty
Last night, for the very first time, Disco legend and arguably the father of modern dance music, Giorgio Moroder, performed at the Output club in Brooklyn for the Red Bull Music Academy. Best known for his work with Donna Summer, Freddie Mercury, David Bowie and Daft Punk and scores for Scarface and Flashdance, Moroder drew hundreds out to BK for this landmark performance…and we were one of the lucky few who got to witness it first hand!
Francois K, renowned DJ in his own right, began the epic night with a speech: “Good Evening everybody, great set by T. Williams! Welcome to Deep Space. I would really like to thank Output for accommodating this landmark, historical show where, obviously, a lot more people wanted to come. So here’s one thing, I’ve got you here..and you’re not waiting for me to start playing…I know what you are here for… (Cheers from the crowd) But since I’ve got you guys as a captive audience…I figured I might as well play stuff that I really like! Instead of the generic electronic post-millennial crap, that goes in one ear and out the other…so we are going to introduce a legendary show with something you are really going to remember..so in that spirit we are going to get it happening, and here it is for you!”
Before immediately diving into Daft Punk’s new “Give Life Back to Music” (and yes, people were actually dancing like that ^). Francois K went on to entertain the eagerly awaiting crowd with other dope tracks like the Skreamix of Duke Dumont’s “Need U 100%,” “Beat The Street” by Sharon Redd, and “Atlantic” By Luca Bacchetti.
Finally, the moment of truth came and the crowd erupted as a little old man entered the booth. Stepping up to the mic, after the applause, we hear the awesome and memorable vocoded voice of Giorgio Moroder booming over the speakers. Hard to tell exactly what he was saying (as we’ve experienced before with DP and Pharell’s “Rub A Mexican Monkey”) but if I were to guess it was “Good evening ladies and gentleman…I am Giorgio Moroder. I am so happy to be here with yoooouuuuuuu. Let’s have a nice eveninggg. This is my friennnnnd and musical directorrrrrr, Chris. Ok, Chris, lets do ittttttt!”
Then, jumping into live riffs and synths played via a modified DJ set up of pioneer decks, what appeared to be a 16 key piano for live synths, a launchpad and the vocoder. His intro soon gave way to his classic collaboration with Munich Machine “In Love With Love,” with Moroder singing live, soon followed by “Lost Angeles.”
The next hour was an amazing disco whirlwind of epic proportions. Several artists and indsutry tastemakers like Benni Benassi, Danny Tenaglia, Chris Liebing, Drop The Lime, Sean Glass, Alex English, Star Eyes and others were in attendance to pay homage to the disco great. I could have easily been in a classic 70′s disco dancing until dawn, all that was missing were mustaches, platform boots and sequins. Moroder continued to drop some of his most famous tracks (with the assistance of Chris Cox of thunderpuss) including “From Here To Eternity,” His newest track “Racer,” “I Love to Love You Baby,” “Bad Girls,” “Hot Stuff,” “On The Radio” and “I Feel Love” with Donna Summer, “Jump The Gun” with The Three Degrees, “Beat the Clock” with Sparks, “I Wanna Rock You,” and ”Chase.”
And he couldn’t have ended the night more perfectly. Cutting the music, he re-told his biography in the his signature accent, now made immortal by Daft Punk in “Giorgio by Moroder” before cutting to the hard synths that made that track my favorite of Random Access Memories. An insane, historic night that will not soon be forgotten in my book!
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