“I don’t think the disco era ended.  They may have changed the name, but they haven’t, in effect, changed the fact that dance music, the club scene and such, still go on.  Obviously, music always evolves.  It changes from disco to dance to electronica to trance to ambient.  You can call it whatever you want, but in effect it is music that people wanna hear, that people wanna dance to, and that people love.”  —Marvin Schlacter (Founder, Prelude Records)

To anyone who has yet to experience DISCOSHOW, the groove-tacular Spiegelworld-produced production show-cum-dance party at The LINQ, which will be raising the roof for the last time on Saturday, January 03: What are you waiting for?  Go now, while you still can!  It’s a good time, whether you go alone, with a date, or as part of a larger group.  For a bit of backstory as to what makes this show special, read on.

You see, back in the late 1960s, a New Yorker named David Mancuso started spinning records for friends at his home.  These invitation-only gatherings (similar to rent-parties) served neither food nor beverages of any kind, and became more and more popular, until Valentine’s Day in 1970, when Mancuso threw his “Love Saves the Day” party (cover charge: $2), the first of the weekly get-togethers in his home (a loft) at 647 Broadway, which would come to be known as The Loft. 

These Loft parties were (in the words of sound engineer Alex Rosner), “about sixty percent black and seventy percent gay… a real mix, where the common denominator was music;” and would greatly influence the emerging generation of DJs—including such future masters of the ones-and-twos as Frankie Knuckles (Warehouse, Chicago), Nicky Siano (The Gallery, New York), Tony Humphries (Club Zanzibar, Newark), and the maestro himself, Larry Levan (Paradise Garage, New York)—and scene makers with a mix of danceable R&B, world music, and pretty much anything with a four-on-the floor drum beat, some great orchestration, a syncopated bassline, and usually (but not always) a great vocal track.

Songs played on the regular at the Loft included “Soul Makossa” by Manu Dibango, “The Love I Lost” by Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes, “Rock the Boat” by The Hues Corporation, “Rock Your Baby” by George McCray, “Love’s Theme” by Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, and “Love Is the Message” by MFSB featuring The Three Degrees. 

In short, it was one of the original homes of the form of danceable R&B we now know as disco; and it’s this “Love Saves the Day” ethos of The Loft and the music it inspired that drives DISCOSHOW, the latest from the clever minds at Spiegelworld (who bring to life such hit Las Vegas shows as Absinthe in the Green Fairy Garden at Caesars Palace and Atomic Saloon Show in the Grand Canal Shoppes at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas).

Now, I don’t want to put too fine a point on it, but DISCOSHOW—which goes down Wednesday through Sunday nights at 7PM and 9 PM, in the Glitterloft at The LINQ, through Saturday, January 03—is an absolute blast!  It’s a bit of immersive theater in the very best way, and the energy is downright infectious.  Led by the cast, audience members join the floorshow that takes place in the midst of an inverted theater-in-the-round (albeit a square-shaped one), and one is hard-pressed to find anyone not laughing or at the very least smiling while trying to dance with the rhythm (pretty easy with that ever-present floor-on-the-floor drumbeat, which is partly why disco was so popular).

The music is pretty fantastic and is authentic to the era and genre.  Guests are led into the theater to the sounds of “Supernature” by Cerrone and “Bad Girls” by Donna Summer, while the production itself includes such classic tracks as “Lost in Music” and “We Are Family” by Sister Sledge, “Car Wash” by Rose Royce, “Disco Inferno” by The Trammps, “Best of My Love” by The Emotions, “Relight My Fire” by Dan Hartman, “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, “Everybody Dance,” “Le Freak,” and “Good Times” by Chic, “Hot Stuff” and “I Feel Love” by Donna Summer, “Knock on Wood” by Amii Stewart, and perhaps the most perennial disco anthem of them all, “(You Make Me Feel) Might Real” by Sylvester.

But perhaps my favorite part of DISCOSHOW, and certainly the most culturally relevant, is that the show's writers and producers decided to go out with a teaching moment, wherein the cast dances to a half-dozen songs that aren’t simply latter-day takes on disco but would very likely have been classified as disco were it not for cultural backlash against the term.  This finale primer includes “Upside Down” by Diana Ross (1980), “Get Down on It” by Kool & The Gang (1981), “All Night Long (All Night)” by Lionel Richie (1983), “Word Up!” by Cameo (1986), “Groove is in the Heart” by Deee-Lite (1990), and “Only Girl (In the World)” by Rihanna (2010).

After the show ends, the party continues in another of the Glitterloft’s venues, designed to emulate the threadbare, DIY vibe of a Downtown New York loft in the 1970s, with even more of that fabulous music. 

DISCOSHOW
The LINQ
Wednesday – Sundays | 7PM and 9PM
Click HERE for info and tickets

Get into it!
#DISCOSHOW