Festival-goers had an unlikely response to The Village People’s set at Riot Fest last weekend (September 13-15), starting a wall of death during the ‘YMCA’.
The disco group were performing at the Chicago festival alongside the likes of Bikini Kill, Blink-182, The Flaming Lips, and The Raconteurs.
Instead of embarking on the usual scenes of letter-forming crowd participation, when ‘YMCA’ started, the audience created a huge gap between them and then rushed at each other when the chorus hit. You can watch footage of the moment below.
The fun didn’t stop there, with those present starting a gentle circle pit during ‘Macho Man’. Some crowdsurfers were also witnessed during the group’s set.
In March, The Village People’s cop Victor Willis announced he was planning to “reboot the group” with “new characters” after years of legal issues were settled.
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“There was nothing I could do about it until this legal stuff was straightened out,” he said at the time.
Meanwhile, Henri Belolo, the producer and co-creator of The Village People, died in August at the age of 82. In a statement, Willis said: “I am devastated by the untimely death of Henri Belolo who was my former producer, mentor and co-creator of Village People. Henri, who actually died on August 3, 2019, leaves an impressive body of work that helped shape the disco genre, and as a record executive, he was par excellence.”