Are you ready to party?
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EDMONDS — Here's the formula for getting audience members on their feet: Play disco.
Just ask the Afrodisiacs.
In casinos, clubs and outdoor festivals, the band gets an audience dancing by performing covers of songs by such groups as the Bee Gees, Kool & the Gang, and Earth, Wind & Fire.
Especially at the outdoor concerts.
"Outdoor festivals are always a lot of fun," said Ron Gatty, the group's guitarist. "We get a different crowd, a lot younger, and we adjust our songs accordingly."
The Afrodisiacs and Dana Osborn's Elton John tribute will kick off the Edmonds Waterfront Festival in a pre-festival party and dance from 5 to 10 p.m. tomorrow in the festival's food court.
The festival officially opens at 11 a.m. Friday for three days of events through 7 p.m. Sunday along Admiral Way at the Edmonds Marina parking lot.
The festival, run by the Rotary Club of Edmonds, will take up the length of two football fields and draw up to 35,000 people, according to Craig Cooke of Pacific Rim Talent, who books the festival entertainment.
The three-day event will feature a carnival, 75 arts-and-crafts booths, 20 food booths and dining areas, a kids arcade with climbing walls and inflatable play areas, a food court and a beer garden.
Proceeds from admission and other profits go to the Rotary's scholarships and social-service programs, including the Homeless Youth Foundation and Rotary First Harvest.
Two stages bracket each end of the festival grounds. At the Miller Stage, audiences will find the Dance Factory, the Machine, Big Dog Revue and Nick Vigarino & Meantown Blues.
At the Family Stage, performers will include J.P. Patches, Buck & Elizabeth, Kickshaw, the Reptile Man, the Navy Band NW and the Islanders.
Gatty said the Afrodisiacs began in the early 1990s when a band called Roxanne put on wigs and played disco hits for the last night of a performance in Los Angeles. The crowd went crazy, and soon disco eclipsed the rest of its music.
Roxanne lead singer Jamie Brown joined fellow band member Roger Sause to create a disco show that could be put into clubs around the country. They called themselves the Afrodisiacs and started versions in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
Gatty, 37, who was in seventh grade when disco first hit, had to learn the music and the moves from the era when disco was king and groups such as the Bee Gees, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Earth, Wind & Fire and Kool & the Gang regularly recorded chart-topping hits.
Wearing platform shoes, bell-bottom pants, wigs and sunglasses, the group became a living, breathing time capsule from 30 years ago.
"Our lead singer wears a three-piece suit," Gatty said. "We go thrift-store shopping for polyester shirts."
The group — Gatty on guitar, Kevin Latimer on drums, and brothers Dan and Dave Jensen on bass guitar and vocals — keeps its set list consistent, with the era's biggest hits, "and they work every time," Gatty said.
Their most popular tune is a cover of the Commodores' "Brick House." Lately, they've been expanding into groove, funk and music of the 1980s. But they keep dipping into that '70s well, Gatty said.
"It's the power of disco. It's amazing. It's the beat, it's the music. It's just so infectious. People can't not dance to it."
Diane Wright: 425-745-7815 or dwright@seattletimes.com