POWER PLAY: DISCO, LIKE SMALLPOX, IS NOT COMPLETELY DEAD

I have been to the Ninth Plane of Disco Hell.

Platform shoes. Dookie gold chains with huge, ugly medallions. Women with feathered back, Farrah Fawcett Majors hairdos. Big pants. Leisure suits. Denny Tario, the host of "Dance Fever." The Village People live in concert.

As a grade school student during the 1970s, I missed out on the full experience of that period. Fortunately when you're young, you're not fully cognizant of the horrors around you. Also, it gives me a legitimate excuse for owning the Andy Gibb 45 "Shadow Dancing." I was a dumb little kid, how was I to know that he was to music what Jello is to fine cuisine -- sugary and bouncy, but little else?

On New Year's Eve I got a glimpse into that blurry past when I attended a 1970s disco bash at Kiel Center in St. Louis. I hadn't seen so much polyester in one place since the last time I went to a bowling alley.

It seemed somewhat at odds with the ideals of the New Year. Instead of looking forward into the future that is 1996, thousands embraced the past of two decades ago. Then again, on New Year's Eve once you get enough drinks in you a recreation of the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215 could probably be turned into a really swinging time.

The ice at Kiel that night was converted into a huge dance floor complete with glitter balls and people enthusiastically "getting down" to the sometimes catchy but always unremarkable music that is disco.

Many of the partygoers came dressed for the occasion. Either people still retained much of their garb from that era -- hidden away in the darkest recesses of the closet like some dirty secret -- or a massive raid was launched against a Goodwill Thrift Store. If the latter was the case, I doubt the Goodwill people are displeased. Even the poor and downtrodden wouldn't want to be caught dead in such attire.

Of course, I doubt people of any socioeconomic status would wish to be caught dead regardless of what they were wearing. But that is beside the point.

One person who looked like he had just walked off the set of "Saturday Night Fever" proudly boasted that his leisure suit was 100 percent flame retardant. The implication seemed to be that if firefighters would only discard their traditional overalls and trench coats for a 70s retro look they not only would be safer but also stylin' cats at a three-alarm blaze.

Neither I nor any of my companions came in character. In fact, we were only there because one of said companions works for the company that books and promotes concerts in St. Louis and scored a couple dozen free tickets.

In theory I never thought I'd go see the Village People, the headline attraction at the fiesta, even for the price of free. I don't want anyone to get the idea that I condone disco, but the whole experience seemed too weird to pass up.

I didn't even think the Village People were still alive. I, like most people, assumed that they had all returned to their respective professions of construction worker, cop, soldier, biker, cowboy and Indian.

Viewing their performance from a 1990s perspective, I can't see how they ever became popular. It must have been the drugs everybody was supposedly doing in the 70s.

At least I hope it was the drugs. If sober people really had that poor of taste in music and fashion it would just serve as another frightening example of the horrible things of which the human race is capable.

~Marc Powers is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian news staff.