We Danced For No Reason But To Dance

So it's Friday afternoon, I'm sitting down in Soc&Kom eating lunch, minding my own business, when Felix comes over to chat. We had a typically male conversation.

"Hey, Ben."

"Hey Felix"

"What are you doing tonight?"

"No plans man."

"You should come out to a rave with us"

"O.K."

about four hours later, I was here

As you can see, and kind of hear [sorry about that by the way, I couldn't be bothered lugging my DAR there to get good audio] it was a pretty wicked affair. On the bill were 2Many DJ's, who like most mashup acts, are a boatload better live. They were supported by a few other local acts including Huoratron [Seriously, click on that link] who pretty much slayed the dance-floor by the end of the night.

Friday night helped me remember why a person goes out. When you live on the western side of Australia, it's very easy to forget why seeing music live is fun. Most good international acts will be playing in a festival setting, and if you don't have backstage passes being at a festival kind of sucks. You have to contend with a Mardi-gras-esque parade of people on the train-ride to unconsciousness, with all your favourite stops along the way. Weepy-girlsville, I-Think-I'm-A-Standup-Comic-But-I'm-Actually-Just-Annoyington, Messed-Up-Solo-City, Teenybopper-In-Thongsworth, and probably my very favorite stop I'll-Fuckin'-Smash-Youseleigh.

Lets say though that you do go to a dedicated event for electronic music in Perth, no festival atmosphere there right? Well, yeah, you don't have the legion of Southern-cross-sporting centurions, you've got a different breed of criminal, underage crack head ravers. Now, I should make it clear that "ravers" are not a sub-culture I have any significant beef with. I refer specifically here to the methed out 14-22 yearolds that have used so much crack their faces are starting to give up the battle.

Now I know it might seem like I'm casting judgement from my ivory tower here, decreeing that only I, and people like me, should be allowed into events; that shabby paedestrian riff raff? Well they can just stay out side thank you very much. Nothing could be further from the truth though. What I'm looking for in my ideal crowd is a bunch of people who are there to enjoy themselves and contribute to the atmosphere by doing the very simple task of not being a complete jerkoff. You wanna come, take drugs, and shake your booty like it's going out of fashion? Sweet. You wanna roll in with a bunch of your home boys and roll around talkin' shit and laughing, power to ya. You wanna stand in the corner all night saying nothing and chin-stroking? straight up dawg. It's when your shit, starts being someone else's shit, that you should really re-evaluate what's going on.

Friday night was was like some kind of dancehall utopia after what I'm accustomed to. The tragically hip kids were dancing with the ravers, the big macho ice-hocky players funking down next to the queers, and not in the whole night did I see a single fight, nor a rough expulsion by the bouncers [and trust me, I was looking]

I wonder how we can port this to a west Australian audience?

anyways, here's the pics I took that night that I like. Click on the slideshow to be taken through to the picasa album. [I'm the one with the beard, for all the cat's reading who don't know me personally]