Music review: Sister Sledge at Edinburgh Corn Exchange

One of the defining groups of the disco age lost one of their girl gang earlier this year when Joni Sledge passed away but, as their contemporaries The Village People once sang, you can't stop the music, so surviving Sledge sisters Kim and Debbie are still on the road (youngest sister Kathy having left the line-up in the late 80s).

Debbie Sledge of Sister Sledge PIC: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images

Sister Sledge ***

Corn Exchange, Edinburgh

They paid tribute to their late sibling, “a lover of life”, with the breathy ballad Easier to Love, which was little more than a slow jam mantra though the “choose love” message never goes out of fashion. Nor does their catalogue of evergreen songs from the pen of Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards dispatched with signature celebratory unison vocals.

Their cutesy mid-80s chart-topper Frankie is closer to the finger-popping sounds of the 60s girl groups but it was their run of late 70s clubland classics which hit the mark with the Friday night party crowd. Even the security staff were competing for the accolade He’s the Greatest Dancer as a motley trio of fans were invited onstage to cut some rug.

The love vibrations continued with the effervescent Thinking Of You, given a sultry makeover. Good Times’ much sampled bass line was delivered by their kilted bassist, and they made brief reference to its use in early hip-hop classic Rapper’s Delight, before Joni’s son Thaddeus joined his aunties upfront for the disco drama of Lost In Music, lending another layer to their rallying cry We Are Family.