Normally, I’d avoid with extreme prejudice any program with the word “disco” in it. But “Disco Live,” the second production show hosted by Hard Rock Hotel Casino Atlantic City, isn’t just any program. It’s staged by Allen Valentine, the impresario who is arguably the top casino-revue producer this side of Las Vegas. Thanks to his insistence on quality above all, this musical survey of the era of Spandex and Quaaludes is far more than the cheesy wallow in nostalgia it likely would have been had other, lesser talents been involved.
Primarily, the secret of Valentine’s consistent success in the production show realm (his “The Burlesque Show” begins its seventh year next month at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa) is his willingness to put product over profits.
In less-capable (read: greedier) hands, this show probably would have featured a cast of four singers, six dancers and a three-piece rhythm section playing live to recorded tracks. But 25-count ‘em’—25 talented performers fill the stage at Hard Rock’s Soundwaves theater: eight dancers, eight vocalists and a nine-piece band. And they weave their musical magic in front of a gigantic video screen that displays an ever-changing palette of song-appropriate graphics.
The singers and dancers all acquit themselves with style and verve and all are uniformly up to the task at hand. But just as in the casino’s inaugural revusical offering, last year’s rafter-shaking “Motor City Live,” it’s the band that lifts “Disco Live”—which house-producer Valentine conceived with Hard Rock entertainment czar Bernie Dillon--to the heights it achieves.
The ensemble, quarterbacked by veteran bassist (and casino-revue mainstay) Arland Gilliam, features the same eight players that powered “Motor City Live.” They are joined by a female percussionist who provides the rhythmic percolation required by so many of the numbers.
But the point here is that disco was never meant to be a musical medium in the traditional sense: The genre’s stars were, with some exceptions, the record producers and the beats themselves. After all, disco’s primary purpose was to supply people rhythms to which they could dance—sorry, shake their booties. To hear a band tighter than the 2000 presidential election pump up slickly produced tracks like “Turn the Beat Around,” “I Will Survive” and “Last Dance” with electric raw energy takes the songs to a different level.
As for the rest of the set list, it pays homage to the tunes and artists you’d expect, although there are multiple numbers that had to be excised from what started out as a three-hour-and-40-minute marathon so that the casino-blessed 75-minute running time could be rendered. Among the others that made the cut are the Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love;” ABBA’s “Dancing Queen;” “I’m Coming Out” by Diana Ross; “Disco Inferno” (The Trampps track that is arguably the greatest disco song of all) and, of course, the Village People’s goofy anthem-for-the-ages, “YMCA,” complete with the audience making the iconic arm gestures to form the initials over their heads.
Adding to the overall effect are the energetic choreography by Jill Reed that animates the production wire-to wire, and the sleek, spot-on costuming by Valentine’s wife, Kristine.
Bottom line: “Disco Live” did little to move this audience member out of the “Disco Sucks” camp he’s inhabited for 40-plus years. But it nonetheless was a helluva lot of fun, and an absolute must-see for the disco dandies among us.
4 p.m. Sundays; $30 and $20; www.ticketmaster.com.