Usually, festival collabs are worked out weeks in advance, and the bigger the star, the more notice you have to give them. Artists’ diaries, after all, tend to get booked up months, often years, in advance.
Which makes it all the more surprising to hear that Earth Wind & Fire’s surprise guest appearance during Sabrina Carpenter’s Lollapalooza set in Chicago on Sunday (3 August) was worked out at the last minute. In fact, the '70s soul/ disco legends had just 24 hours to prepare.
In an interview with Vulture, EWF frontman Philip Bailey revealed that Carpenter’s agent came up with the idea for the cameo. Luckily, the band were playing in Detroit, Michigan on the Saturday, and had two days off before their next gig, also in Michigan.
“They sent a private plane for us and our entourage,” Bailey said. “We hopped on a plane at seven in the morning, went in, and had the rehearsal. It was very quick and kind of sketchy. I was almost concerned about it. But by that evening, they had dialled everything in, and she did her homework on what verses she was going to take. We went out there and floated on all that energy.”
Earth Wind & Fire performed two of their biggest hits – Let’s Groove and September - which, needless to say, brought the house down, though apparently Carpenter was well aware of the full extent of the band’s substantial – 22 studio albums, dating back to the early 1970s – back catalogue. After the performance she wrote on Instagram that Earth, Wind & Fire “raised me on the greatest songs of all time; true soul moving timeless music.”
Bailey admitted that, prior to the show, the only Carpenter song he knew was Espresso. But despite this, he was complimentary about the 26-year-old singer: “She’s very cordial, very kind, and very approachable. We both greeted each other warmly, but we didn’t have time to talk about anything. Everybody was on a tight schedule. We didn’t even have time to run over the performance thoroughly. There were things that weren’t right during the run-through, so my people stayed there and we trusted that they would get all that stuff ready in due time.”
“Sometimes things work, and oftentimes they don’t,” he added. “Her energy and our energy were very compatible and complementary to one another. How she puts her show together, in terms of how it accelerates and builds, was fantastic. Where she chose to put our segment was perfect.”
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