Festival chat: Nile Rodgers - "I guess people feel they don’t have time to have any bad experiences"

The lead guitarist of Chic tells his best festival tales in our series of quick questions 
Freak out: Glastonbury gave Nile Rodgers his best festival experience
Nile Rodgers Productions
Cerys Kenneally29 April 2016

Our series of quick fire questions with some of this year's top festival artists reveals their best and worst experiences at festivals around the world.

What’s been your best festival experience?

Glastonbury a couple of years ago. I didn’t expect anything of the sort to happen and it was just overwhelming. Get Lucky had just come out, and we were only supposed to have 35,000 people in the crowd, but 55,000 turned up. You can see it on YouTube, it was incredible. It was only the second time in history that they’ve had to shut down the area.

Which festival are you most looking forward to playing this year and why?

FOLD Festival at Fulham Palace. One because I get to play with my friends and I get to curate it, and two it’s right in London. Fulham Palace is a fabulous spot and it’s great to go to a festival that you can leave at the end of the night and sleep in your own bed. You get to do all the cool stuff at a festival with your friends – dance, sing, eat amazing food, and when you’re turning in you can just go home to your bed.

What is your favourite festival?

A festival with a ridiculous name: Clockenflap in Hong Kong. It’s awesome. It’s so beautiful, the way the sun sets on the stage. It’s completely magical.

Do you prefer urban or rural festivals?

Urban all day long. That’s why I loved Clockenflap – we get to the leave the stage and go back and stay at an amazing hotel. I’ve never been a big camper – that’s not really for me. I’m a New Yorker through and through.

Festivals in London this summer

1/21

Is the appeal of festivals declining or thriving?

People say it’s declining, but there are new ones coming out every year so I just don’t know. I just got into the festival business myself only because I wanted to show people that music that you think doesn’t go together, and artists that you don’t think go together, do actually go together really well.

What do you want to see when you go to festivals?

I want to see and hear music that I wouldn’t normally. I want to be introduced to new stuff. I’m always amazed when I hear a new band and go ‘wow, I can’t believe how great they were’. For me, because I come from an era of discovery where we liked being turned on to new things, we used to go to a concert and see artists we never heard of before. It was always a learning experience for us, but I feel like people now go to a festival where they are going to see live music that they already know. I guess people feel they don’t have time to have any bad experiences and to make sure everything is perfect, but I don’t mind making mistakes. Things shouldn’t be perfect all the time.

Nile Rodgers’ FOLD Festival is 24-26 June at Fulham Palace, London. Read our interview here

Follow Going Out on Facebook and on Twitter @ESgoingout

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in