THE BEST DISCO IN TOWN ***
PLAYHOUSE, EDINBURGH
ONCE I'd managed to get over the mildly ludicrous sight of 50-year-old men dancing like they were in Backstreet Boys, I realised that this all-star nostalgia revue of one-time disco superstars could teach the pop stars of today a thing or two.
Lesson one: nobody wants to hear the album tracks - just get up there, play five or six big hits that everyone knows, and clear out, perhaps even leaving them wanting more.
The show was a curio for any even slightly progressive music fan - a chance to have any "where are they now?
" questions answered in respect of such heroes of a long-faded zeitgeist as Odyssey (Native New Yorker) and George McRae (Rock Your Baby).
The fans here greeted The Three Degrees' latest incarnation with the same joyous fervour a Beatles revival might enjoy.
We also saw elderly Scousers The Real Thing doing their boyband bit to Can You Feel the Force?
and the candy-coated You To Me Are Everything, while Tavares flexed their not-inconsiderable back-catalogue, which features the Take That-appropriated It Only Takes a Minute and sweetly lurid Saturday Night Fever-soundtracker, More Than a Woman.
Rose Royce delivered both the night's best song with the mighty Is It Love You're After? and its most featherweight nadir of cheese in Car Wash.
A good time was had by all, despite the fact disco is only really acceptable late on a Saturday night.
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