There’s a playlist on Apple Music called “Inspired by Chic”. It might as well be called “breathes oxygen”, I thought to myself, as I wandered down to Barcelona’s port to see Chic at the Blaumari festival last night, such is the influence of the US disco group and its co-founder and guitar player extraordinaire Nile Rodgers. 

Chic not only produced some of the most indelible, undeniable hits of the disco era - think Everybody Dance, Le Freak, I Want Your Love etc. - but their music also provided the basis for many foundational hip hop songs (notable Good Times, which was plundered for Rapper’s Delight), while Rodgers and fellow Chic co-founder, bass player Bernard Edwards, would go on to produce hits for everyone from David Bowie to Madonna. Edwards sadly died in 1996 but the last two decades have seen Rodgers only increase in influence, co-writing songs like Daft Punk’s Get Lucky and Le Sserafim’s Unforgiven. 

This catalogue provides the basis for perhaps the most epochal gig I have seen since Kraftwerk were last in town, a kind of Moses returning from Mount Sinai for the disco generation. Nerd that I am, I sent a lot of time thinking about what was the least known song on the group’s 20-track setlist at Blaumari, a new festival that takes place at Barcelona’s Moll Blaumarí, a floating platform that juts out into the calm Mediterranean waters. I concluded, in the end, it was Beyoncé’s Cuff It, a song that won best R&B song at the 2023 Grammy Award, taken from the multi-million-selling Renaissance album. Which is totally ridiculous - but also what else are you going to go for? Lost in Music? Material Girl? (Actually, maybe the award should go to Chic’s Soup For One, as sampled by Modjo on Lady. But it gets such a huge scream of appreciation from the crowd that it doesn’t seem right to name it.)

So, yes, Nile Rodgers and Chic have unbelievable hits. And it is a privilege just to be in the presence of one of the world’s most influential bands on a balmy Sunday night, akin to the worshipful communion of Kraftwerk or Paul McCartney gigs or watching James Brown lay down the funk while he saw still alive. But Chic also play like a dream. Rodgers, for all that the band bears his name, is a brilliantly restrained player, his ultra percussive guitar style binding the songs together like disco-fied glue. He takes a few guitar solos but always put the good of the song first, admirable discipline for a man whose name is spelled out in lights behind him. 

The rest of the seven-piece band are brilliant, too, recreating Chic’s surprisingly minimal funk with ecstatic élan, as well as perfectly recreating five decades of hits, like the jukebox of your dreams. Special praise must go to bass player Jerry Barnes, who plays Edwards’ surgically funky bass lines with just the right amount of loose-limbered steel, while Naomi Rodgers (Nile’s daughter) and Audrey Martells, who double up on vocals, are the life of the live set, their voices the cream to Rodger’s caffeine. Keyboard player Russell Graham even pulls off a more than capable Bowie on Modern Love, Let’s Dance and China Girl, his voice touched with, rather than straight up aping, the Dame.

This is, perhaps, one of the least reviewable gigs in history. Just go and have a look at the setlist: is there any way you wouldn’t enjoy that? Do you even like pop music? Have you ever danced? You could go and watch Nile Rodgers and Chic - as they are billed - and wallow in musical history. You could go and pay your respect to a musical icon. But none of that feels quite right for a band this vivaciously alive. Dance Dance Dance. That’s what Chic told you back in 1977 on their first single; it’s what they told you again tonight. So maybe just go and do it. Immaculate.

PS Now that I’ve got that out of my system, normal newsletter service will be resumed on Wednesday,

In the meantime, why not check out the new Line Noise podcast? I spoke to New York DJ hero Victor Calderone about 18-hour sets, phone-free zones, Bleep, working with Joey Beltram, signing to Sire and - of course - remixing Madonna. We also chatted about his new New York residency, ma++er, at Brooklyn club Refuge, where he is to be found spinning 12-hour sets that will take you into tomorrow evening