The 17 piece disco band, Escort, played an amazing, energetic show at the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan on Saturday August 17th with opening band, Midnight Magic.
Both bands
brought the audience a blend of classic disco and funk with new age
electronic dance elements and vocals, and the crowd loved it. Everyone
was on their feet, dancing, having a great time. The energy in the
audience was unbeatable. I think after experiencing Escort live it's
safe to say disco never died, it was just revamped.
Front woman of Escort, Adeline Michele - in a Nicole Miller print dress and hat by Crowns of Nyanga (styled by Irini Arakas),
oozed sex appeal and glamour like the vocal and fashion icon she is.
Michele, born and raised in Paris, France, grew up in a very large and
musically talented family. She has been singing and touring
professionally since she was 5 years old, when she joined a choir in
Paris. Michele is also a working model and was able incorporate her
modeling talent in her stage presence at the Bowery Ballroom by using
the poses, confidence and style that you would see on the pages of Vogue.
I was able to
interview Michele, earlier in the week to talk about her excitement for
the Bowery Ballroom show, the origin of Escort, upcoming shows and so
much more.
DP: First, tell me a little about Escort.Who founded it? How did you get involved?
AM: Escort was originally founded by Eugene Cho and Dan Balis,
who met each other in college. While spinning disco records together,
they came up with the concept for Escort. At that time, I had just put
out my first album and one of my friends told me that Dan and Eugene
were looking for a vocalist and thought I'd be perfect for the spot.
So, you grew up in Paris. Why did you decide to move to New York?
Let's see…
I've lived in New York full time for about seven years now. After high
school I decided to take the next step and move to New York, where I'd
be able to take music seriously. I tried college for a few days, but I
honestly just found it… boring. I like to live in the now, and at that
time I had the choice of either staying bored in college or living an
exciting life in New York doing what I love.
Do you play any instruments?
I do. I play
the bass, and actually last year I started playing the bass in Escort. I
don't play it the whole set, but we often play musical chairs with our
instruments. Since it can sometimes be hard to travel with all seventeen
pieces, and so many members of Escort are multi-talented, we do switch
it up a bit. We have a very solid sound, but we are always growing and
learning more.
With the success of Escort, do you still plan to continue modeling?
I would love to bring the two together, so that when I model, I'm modeling as Adeline Michele of Escort.
Where have been your favorite places to perform?
One of my
most favorite places to perform has to be Portugal. We went there in
December of last year, and they had turn down three hundred people at
our show. Everyone knew so many of our lyrics and were just all so
welcoming. It was perfect. And, we went there again in July. It was
Eugene's birthday and they sung Happy Birthday to him in Portuguese. It
was amazing.
Is Escort currently touring?
We just came back from a tour in Europe. And, next week we are heading to the west coast.
Escort's
self-titled debut album is critically acclaimed and even landed a spot
on both SPIN and Rolling Stone's list of the "Best Albums of 2012." They
also recently released a new package for their single "Barbarians" that included remixes from CSS, Tiger & Woods and Rance Muhammitz.
