The Village People @ Melbourne Zoo Twilight Series, Melbourne (06/03/2015)
On March 6 the Village People provided the penultimate performance for this year Melbourne Zoo’s Twilight Series and it was great fun!
There was no live band but the six vocalists knew exactly what the crowd wanted and put on an entertaining song and dance show that also drew on crowd participation and “tongue-in-cheek” quips. As they themselves stated at the start of the show, this wasn’t going to be about rock or pop or country; it was going to be about disco –and the crowd loved it! Given that the Village People are synonymous with the 70s (and early 80s) it came as no surprise that the material performed was almost exclusively from that era. In fact the only “new” song performed, 2013’s Let’s Get Back to the Dancefloor, was written by Harry Wayne Casey (he being KC of KC and the Sunshine Band) so it slotted in easily among the older material. It is easy to overlook the significance the Village People played in the disco era; while a lot of artists had a disco hit (or two), they had a string of them. The Zoo performance provided a reminder that in terms of massive songs that will remain etched in the minds of music listeners everywhere, the Village People have a sizeable collection of successful hits that many artists (of all genres) could be envious of. |
There was no filler material to pad out a
couple of hits. They had people up and dancing within minutes of
arriving on stage. Macho Man, Milkshake, San Francisco/In Hollywood,
Can’t Stop the Music, Trash Disco and In the Navy were all in the main
set. While covers of Sylvester’s You Make me Feel (Mighty Real) and a
dance version of the Doobie Brothers’ Listen to the Music sat
comfortably alongside the other VP material.
The two-song encore capped off a great night’s entertainment; first with the popular hit Go West (it became a hit all over again when the Pet Shop Boys covered it) and finally with the monster disco anthem that is YMCA (delivered with instructions about the correct dance moves – some of us have been getting the “M” wrong for years!).
This was not a night for wailing guitar solos (some lions were contributing vocals at the back of the crowd though) or serious instrumentation; it was a night designed to remind us that as it is in life, music should also be about fun, and the Village People delivered big time! As the crowd, which was a real cross section of people, filtered out of the venue you couldn’t help but notice they all had something in common – they were happy! Well done Ray, Felipe, Alex, Eric, Jim and Bill!
Well done to the good folk at Zoo Twilights also – a great season of concerts for all sorts of music fans!
Darren Parker
The two-song encore capped off a great night’s entertainment; first with the popular hit Go West (it became a hit all over again when the Pet Shop Boys covered it) and finally with the monster disco anthem that is YMCA (delivered with instructions about the correct dance moves – some of us have been getting the “M” wrong for years!).
This was not a night for wailing guitar solos (some lions were contributing vocals at the back of the crowd though) or serious instrumentation; it was a night designed to remind us that as it is in life, music should also be about fun, and the Village People delivered big time! As the crowd, which was a real cross section of people, filtered out of the venue you couldn’t help but notice they all had something in common – they were happy! Well done Ray, Felipe, Alex, Eric, Jim and Bill!
Well done to the good folk at Zoo Twilights also – a great season of concerts for all sorts of music fans!
Darren Parker