LIVE: ‘I Feel Love,’ Brooklyn, NY
For some young New Yorkers, there seems to be a strong desire to travel back in time. This isn’t totally surprising. Rents have skyrocketed in this city. Those that can afford to live here either are working very hard or are supported by outside sources. We’ve heard from our older New-York pals that things used to be easier and more liveable in the down-and-dirty past when the city was affordable, fun, and the music kicked ass.
Enter I Feel Love, a new proposedly “immersive experience reimagining late-’70s nightclub culture” (as its website claims) in a large warehouse space in Brooklyn. Produced by iconic disco label Casablanca Records and featuring DJ sets including one from living legend Giorgio Moroder, this was a night worth the $45 ticket price — but perhaps not for reasons advertised.
It was a refreshingly mixed crowd. Gay and straight, people dressed to the nines in beautiful bell-bottom pant suits, stunning shirtless waify boys, and goofy people in Afro wigs were all there to get down and boogie. Although the crowd was mostly 20-somethings, there were some also older folk there to recapture their disco days, perhaps. The vibe was generally friendly and fun.
I Feel Love’s website and multiple promotional emails stated that the night would be immersive with performers, individualized experiences, nudity, and “stair climbing” (whoo!). The sold-out event certainly has its share of surprises, but entering an airstream trailer and being handed eyeliner by a stunning drag queen can’t quite be considered immersive, even if it is in the spirit of glam.
Other interactive elements were frustrating, such as being told to look for a man with a briefcase for token to access to a special area of the event. My friends and I combed the space multiple times and never found the fellow and, as a result, missed some dancing time.
It sort of felt like being trapped in a real-life Where’s Waldo scenario in which you don’t even know what Waldo looks like, let alone where he is! If there were any nude performers around, we definitely didn’t see them, and we sure didn’t get touched by any… a disappointment for me and my adventurous crew of revelers.
Perhaps the most authentic part of the evening was the absolutely sweltering heat inside the space, copious amounts of sweat dripping off of the participants in the spirit of the summer heatwave of 1977. A lot of Afro wigs got dumped pretty fast in the heat.
“This must have been what Paradise Garage was like,” I kept telling myself as I took copious measures to keep myself hydrated. That was, of course, before the venue ran out of water. Uh-oh. I chalked up these faults to opening-night kinks, because the concept behind I Feel Love was one that’s cool and a welcome addition to this city’s nightlife.
The transformation of the space was very inventive, featuring rooms that evoked different dance clubs of NYC’s past, such as the fabled Limelight, Palladium, and Tunnel. Original Studio 54 DJ Nicky Siano was playing deep disco cuts through a bone-shattering sound system in one room adorned with silver cubes and inflatable zebras hanging from the ceiling. There was also a chill-out room adorned with blacklight reflective bean-bag chairs and a giant game of Twister. However, the highlight was the main dance space adorned with gorgeous LED video displays, a lush sound system, and of course, some giant disco balls.
It was in this space that Giorgio Moroder started his set promptly at 11:30, entering the stage wearing futuristic-looking green glowing sunglasses. Here’s the thing about witnessing Moroder DJing: all the man has to do is play mixes of the most popular songs he’s produced in his long and distinguished career and you’re basically going to have the best set ever.
Moroder started with his “favorite song of all time” (a claim he made a few times during his set) Donna Summer’s “Love to Love You Baby,” and we were off. Hit after hit was played by the man whose genius was one of the main influences on modern pop music. Although the crowd didn’t dance as much as I would have liked (I’m guessing they were too hot), they stood reverentially, often pumping their fists in support of Moroder’s unbeatable taste and aesthetics.
In addition to his ubiquitous hits with Donna Summer, other highlights included hearing Moroder’s excellent cover of “Tom’s Diner” with Britney Spears on vocals and his amusingly titled “74 is the New 24,” both from his strong 2015 album Déjà Vu.
Moroder also played remixes of Blondie’s “Call Me,” Irene Cara’s “Flashdance… What a Feeling,” and Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away,” all of which he produced and co-wrote. A moment of nostalgia for the crowd was when Moroder’s harder disco beats gave way to the theme from The Neverending Story, a track he produced and wrote for Limhal in 1984.
By the time Moroder had reached his grand finale of a Donna Summer double-header comprised of “Last Dance” and the game-changing, ahead-of-its-time “I Feel Love,” the entire crowd was in awe of his output as a producer and songwriter, his DJ skills, and his jovial stage presence.
At the end of his set, Moroder exclaimed: “Disco music is the best music!” Despite I Feel Love’s production problems, the ubiquitous heat, and the fact that I adore a lot of different types of music, during that perfect moment of unity between the crowd and DJ, I could not disagree with the old master.
