One of my favorite things about attending my friends’ weddings is dancing with a group of people with whom I would typically never share the floor.
As E can tell you, my typical first concern after the couple has their first dance is, “when do the fast songs start?” I want to get some dancing in before the entree arrives, and for at least an hour after. Anything less constitutes a failure, no matter how beautiful the venue or good the food.
While I am not typically a musical Luddite eschewing new stuff for golden years, when it comes to dancing most newer tunes (Gaga aside) simply can’t get my body moving on the floor like oldies. I’m not even talking about the 80s. Motown and disco, that’s what makes me want to shake my groove thing.
The wedding we attended last night featured a seven-piece rock band. I typically don’t like wedding bands, because they have cheesy singers, nothing is in the right key, and everything turns into a medley. However, this was a real rock band, and when they played something funky the band got downright dirty.
I’m known for being an uncontrollable freak on the dance floor to begin with, but last night when the band medley’d out of “Disco Inferno” into “Hot Stuff” it was like someone flicked a switch in my brain. I went into berserker mode. I was breaking out moves I probably last saw my mother do in our living room in 1984 – things that always seemed to defy the laws of anatomy and physics. It was like I was Neo in the Dance Matrix.
As great as almost all Donna Summer songs are for dancing, re-listening to “Hot Stuff” makes me realize it has something more. It’s not just that scorching riff, but the overall rock stomp of it. It’s disco, but it’s heavy.
(Also? Extremely satisfying to hear a live band seamlessly segue from “Express Yourself” into “Born This Way” as if the latter was written for that specific purpose.)
