Disco Reunion Shows the Era’s Spirit Will Never Die

Flash forward 30 years to 2027.

The scene: a Los Angeles-area senior citizen center.

The sign outside reads “Disco Dance Featuring the Village People and KC & the Sunshine Band” and a crowd of sixty- and seventysomethings pack the hall, many decked out in the same polyester and glitter and platform heels they wore in their teens and 20s.

Lorraine Gallo will be there. And the 36-year-old paralegal from Santa Monica will be wearing the same 1977 vintage one-shoulder white stretch top and black cutaway skirt she wore as a club-hopping teen--”If I can still fill it out,” the fan said, wearing that very outfit as she danced and screamed during the “Disco Explosion” concert at the Greek Theatre on Thursday.

The show did indeed feature those two acts, along with Kool & the Gang, the Trammps, Vicki Sue Robinson, Thelma Houston and former “Dance Fever” host Denny Terrio as emcee.

It was at once a preview of the future and a revival of the past.

And let’s face it, the idea of disco still being in demand in 2027 is no more outlandish than the idea that it would still be in demand in 1997 was during the height of “Saturday Night Fever” 20 years ago.

And it certainly is in demand now. The fans held a level of frenzy throughout the night, screaming for each act, singing and dancing with each beat-heavy song, squealing the discoid mating chant of “Ooey-ooey!” for every performer who asked them to--and every performer did.

The acts were all up for it, as well. Houston, Robinson and the Trammps spiritedly performed short sets to pre-recorded tracks.

It was Kool & the Gang and KC & the Sunshine Band who put the most into it, though, each featuring full, horn-spiked bands kicking out their funk.

KC’s band engaged in especially intricate steps, and even if leader Harry Wayne Casey appeared to labor a bit in front of accompanying players who all looked as if they must have been watching “Sesame Street” rather than “Saturday Night Fever” 20 years ago, the dance-floor classics flowed freely. “That’s the Way (I Like It)” and the rest remain irresistible to all but the most confirmed grumps.

And then there were the Village People, whose ascendance to cultural institution is a true triumph. The group, with three original members, underscored that with a wink by starting its set of such now-ubiquitous gay anthems as “Macho Man” and “Y.M.C.A.” with Grand Funk’s “We’re an American Band.” And that they are.

Yes, this was nostalgia. And yes, this was camp. But it was well beyond the cultural joke of much of the past 20 years, when disco was code for a vapid, flash-in-the-pan fad. The bond displayed here by an extremely diverse crowd--culturally, ethnically, economically and even age-wise--was way too strong for that.

Village Person David Hodo (the construction worker) explained it all in one song introduction: “Tonight is about relief from the heavy metal and the hard rock . . . a release from the gangsta rap and grunge, an alternative to alternative.”

That’s as serious as it got--no mention all evening of the AIDS epidemic or drug abuse that closed the first disco era, no connections made to today’s dance trends.

Maybe, though, that would have been out of place. As Gallo put it, “It makes people feel good--takes them back to a time and place when they were young and had few responsibilities.”

Be there in 2027. Meet you under the mirror ball.